| By :
Marilyn Katz
Do you take the time to prepare a budget every month? Many of us have dropped that good habit, and our finances suffer. Most families have trouble with spending right now. How many times have you gone out shopping, simply swiped your debit or credit card, and then looked at your bank statement? Have you ever been surprised by how much money you spent without eve thinking about i? And when your checking account balance gets low, do you ever just pull out your credit card? This can be dangerous too. Even though you may not charge much at one time, it adds up quickly. Many families find themselves slowly sinking into debt this way. The solution is to spend some time working on your monthly budget. You will be helped a lot. Even if you have a problem because your expenses are greater than your income, at least you will be able to see where your problems are. It does not have to take a long time to make up a simple budget either. You can find help with many online budget worksheets. Simply document your monthly income. Then write down your fixed expenses. You can also add in the amount of money you plan to save every month. This will make it easy to see if you get a positive number when you subtract your expenses from your income! What if you get a negative number when you take your expenses out of your income? This means you must be surviving on credit. Instead of reducing credit every month, you are increasing it. This road really can lead to ruin because your monthly statement payments will make problems worse. You need a simple attack plan to fix your budget. Some bills, like insurance, phone bills, or utilities should be carefully considered. Can you shop around for better rates? Can you come up with a plan to use less energy? A lot of times you can take some simple steps to save hundreds of dollars on these fixed bills. This may be enough to put your budget back in the black! Where else is money leaking out of your bank account? Most of us love to eat out, but we know that restaurant meals probably cost four times as much as meals we make at home. I can prepare a nice steak dinner for my family for $30. But if we go out for the same meal, our bill may top $100! I can make a wonderful taco feast at home for less than fifteen bucks. But it will cost about $45 to enjoy a similar meal at a restaurant. You do not have to give up on restaurant meals, but you may be well served by cutting back. Try to turn a nice family dinner into a fun event and then enjoy the leftovers the next day. By cutting out 4 restaurant meals a month, you can probably save a couple of hundred dollars. The point of a budget is to learn about your finances. As they say, even if it is not good news, it is good to know. When you see where the problems lie, you can take some steps to fix them.
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