Importance of Budgeting

Budgeting out your finances is an important endeavour that most people aren't too keen on how to get started so here are some tips on how to at least get started:
-Determine your large monthly costs (rent, mortgage, etc).
-Establish other payments (Credit cart, insurance, etc)
-Determine a savings amount (don't aim too big every week because you might lose willpower along the way)
-Give yourself some petty cash allotment

When you determine your large monthly costs you should break it up (if you are paid weekly) so that the impact isn't as noticeable as you are paid. Lets say your rent is $300 a month (don't we all wish...) and you make $300 a week. What I"m saying is don't wait till the week it's due to make that  full payment -- instead  each week you are paid put aside say $100 for 3 weeks to make that rent payment. 

Now lets say you have $120 insurance payment each month -- lets work with the same example above. What I'm saying that you do is take $60 from your earnings for two weeks (or you can break it into $30 bites if you wish but lets stick to $60 for now).

Okay, you've taken care of the major bills, now what about savings? So lets say you want to put $50 aside each week -- that's a comfortable amount for you to save weekly. The key to remember is that your savings are to be left alone (except in dire need....a vacation does not constitute dire need...accidents, extreme sickness, death...these are dire need. Set a threshold for yourself -- lets use $1,000 as an example...keeping a six month goal of budgeting this way will take you to that goal and maybe you feel you can change it up to spend a little more freely. Please make sure to keep that minimum threshold there. Keep saving, you may not have established what your future needs will be.

An example of what your savings will look like as follows:

Many of you might be wondering why the petty cash is so high...but think about things like Transport, Fuel, groceries, Food, incidentals. I'm giving you a basic to start with and you need to consider you will still want to do things like eating out, going to the movies...or maybe you won't and decide to save a bulk of it. The key idea is to take care of your major expenses, establish some saving and not feel like you've got to tighten your belt each and every week. How you work your Petty Cash is entirely up to you and your circumstance.