Budgeting-Great Advice On Budgeting Worksheets, Personal Budgeting, And Budgeting Tips

Unless your Kimora Lee Simmons or Donald Trump chances are you have limits on the amount of money your able to spend. The ability to manage your money in school is important to keeping debt to a minimum while being able to enjoy the fun activities college life has to offer. Of course, as a part of a college budget, it’s okay to spend money and purchase the items you want when you can afford it. And if you take the time to be a good shopper, your money will go a lot further – without breaking your college budget!

If you follow a simple student budget, you will have more money available to afford the activities that make college an experience you’ll always remember. What’s more, you will avoid college debt which means a brighter and richer future for you, your family, and your friends. That is how you will reach your financial goals and enjoy the things in life that make you really like doing.

Below are money saving tips that will make your student budget go further.

1. List what you want – This is a fun exercise that will help you spend money on the things you truly want. Take a pad of paper and write down everything you want. That new sound system, house on the beach, new wardrobe, car, toys, electronics, whatever it is no matter how big or small write it down. Now that you know what you want list them in priority. What is it you want the most; put that at the top of the list and work your way down.

With this list you maximize your college budget and are able to purchase the items you want the most. Seeing the items you want to work toward can provide strong motivation for you to earn the money necessary to buy them. Knowing what it is that you want the most and what will make you happiest is a key component for a developing college student budget that allows you to get the items you want while not overextending yourself.

2. Daily Splurges Those small everyday purchases that on a college budget plan add up more than you may realize. A four-dollar coffee, during the week, adds up to over $1200 a year of needless spending. That’s a 4 star trip to Mexico with your friends for 5 days. What would you rather buy with the $1200?

3. Shopping for entertainment – It can be fun to window shop, but only if you don’t lose control every time you spot a “bargain.” If you have the will power to keep your student budget, definitely go window shopping and enjoy yourself.

4. The good deal shopper – If you have a closet full of clothes with sales tags still attached, your discount shopping may cause you to get into college debt. Avoid debt by purchasing items that you truly need and will use. If you’re experiencing buyers regret after a purchase, don’t be afraid to return those items.

5. Compare prices – If you follow the steps above you will avoid buying on impulse and stick to your student budget. This gives you the luxury of being able to compare prices of a particular item so you can take advantage of discount stores and the Internet for tracking down the best price.

6. After-season Purchases – Purchase your beach gear in the winter and your winter gear during summer. This will stretch your college savings longer and it could save you at least 30% to 80% off what you would pay just a few months later.

7. Be creative – A little creativity goes a long way, especially when you’re tight on funds. Instead of paying $120 for designer jeans, spend $35 for discount jeans pay a tailor $12 to add stitching that mimics designer jeans. You will look great and have money in your newly stitched packet.

8. A Money Diary – Most of us have cash that vanishes each monthto those impulse stops for a double mocha or a drive through snack. To understand how you spend your money, write down everything you spend money on: every coffee, every burger, every bus or taxi fare. Keeping a money diary will help you keep on your college student budget.

The purpose of these money saving tip for college students is to make you aware of how you spend your money, and it is the first step in developing a budget. There is a good chance that after an entire month of doing this, you will begin to think a bit more before you spend. After 30 days of keeping a diary, ask yourself: what have you learned? Are there areas where you feel you spend too much?

9. Opportunity Cost – With every purchase you make there is a direct cost (cash) and an opportunity cost. The opportunity cost is the cost of something in terms of an opportunity forgone. In other words, what else you could do with the same amount of money. What is the opportunity cost of spending $470 for an iPhone? It may be very high if it means you will not have the $470 for something that is more important to you.

To maintain your college budget, this is a good exercise to repeat from time to time as your income and circumstances change. Five years from now your spending habits will be a lot different than they are today.

For most on a college budget there is a liming on how much we can spend. Look at your student budget objectively and get real about your money. Practice these basic college mnoey saving tips and you will be able to afford the lifestyle you want sooner than you think.



By: Vince Shorb

About the Author:

Selene Ziernicki

ccvtee asked:

Ben Cohen, Co-Founder of Ben and Jerry’s, explains the federal budget and how shifting 15% of the Pentagon budget could make all the difference.

Doloris Maker

I am a Republicrat asked:


I am applying for this job and the only budgeting experience i have is sorting income from expense and mainting a certain budget on what products to purchase under a given amount of money. Is there a term for these two specific things i do that i can put in my resume instead of rambling on word by word of what i can do?

Augusta Fatheree

 

The vote on account budget is a very tricky budget. If the ruling party gives too many freebies in it, it will immediately be rapped for using the budget as a tool to unfairly influence the coming elections. Yet, never before perhaps, in the name of Parliamentary propriety, was such a brain dead, irrelevant and unimaginative budget presented… that too when the entire nation was looking up to the Finance Minister for some relief from the seemingly unending woes of economic slowdown! For two hours, the Finance Minister spoke about what the Manmohan Singh regime achieved; but didn’t give anything new on a real time concrete plan to deal with the present crisis of recession. A day before the budget, when it was made clear that it would be Mr. Pranab Mukherjee who would be presenting the budget speech, I had mixed feelings. On one hand, I was extremely appalled at the scarcity of quality people in the Congress. In the last one year or so, it has always been Pranab Mukherjee who has come to the rescue of an otherwise beleaguered government, whenever the situation arose. Whether it was the Indo-US Nuclear Deal or the issue of managing the Left (who eventually left the UPA), whether it was the crisis created after the occurrence of 26/11, or now when the budget was to be presented by some person other than Mr. Chidambaram (as he was mandated to handle the Home Ministry giving the hopeless Shivraj Patil some respite), the answer was Pranab Mukherjee. And since he has always delivered above expectation, I had a feeling that this time – as he would have been delivering the budget speech again after nearly a quarter of a century – it would be something worthwhile. But by the time his speech was halfway through, I realised that he had merely been invited to read out some written text, perhaps deliberately made lackluster to ensure he didn’t end up stealing the show and ruining the current balance of power in the party!

The budget has increased the fiscal deficit of India to nearly 6% from a targeted 2.5%. By giving the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act a quiet burial, UPA did what it does the best, that is, increase government expenditure rather exponentially on the presumption that such increase in government expenditure would on its own bring India out of the clutches of economic slowdown. So the allocation for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) has been increased to Rs. 30,100 crore. On paper, this scheme is perhaps one of the best schemes that could have ever happened (and actually required double that amount to become fully effective), but at the same time, everyone knows what happens in India with the money that is allocated by the government. There have been innumerable instances of corruption, malpractices, exploitation and siphoning off of money earmarked for NREGS. Sample this. In place of the minimum 100 days job promise, the reality has been as low as 77 days in Rajasthan (which is in fact the highest!) and an unimaginably shocking 14 days in the so called pro-poor CPM ruled West Bengal!!! Therefore, a mere increase in allocation does not necessarily signify a major extension of the helping hand, unless those leakages are taken care of. The same is the case with Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and midday meal schemes, where allocations have been increased to Rs. 13,100 crore and Rs. 8,000 crore, respectively. One wonders what these increases are for! Have they been made so that more money is siphoned off? For the Bharat Nirman, National Rural Health Mission and Total Rural Sanitation Program, an allocation of Rs. 40,900 crore, Rs. 12,070 crore and Rs. 1,200 crore has been made respectively. One is really left flummoxed whether people in government even realize that India’s ranking in the Human Development Index has only worsened in the recent past. It is unfortunate that while thousands of crores are being spent every year in the name of rural development, the condition of the rural lot has not substantially improved and the divides between urban and rural India are still startling and ever increasing. All that a government needs to do is to provide good health, good education and good connecting roads. It would automatically make the rural lot connect to the economic growth of this country. Add to this, the incredible increase in the non plan expenditure on account of a huge increase in the subsidy bill, which now stands at Rs. 95,579 crore. This subsidy targeting has been so poor that neither has it been able to make undernourished people get enough food, nor has it been able to reduce the woes of the farmers. All that it has helped is to make a few fertilizer companies become richer by showing bloated bills. Instead of undertaking projects to have, say, Sulabh Sauchalay type schemes (that would give our villagers better sanitation facilities as well as far better quality natural manure), subsidies are given to fertilizer companies to help them stay afloat.

Yes, the defense budget has been increased by a whopping 35%!!! Yes, we had the Mumbai attacks, but did that require such a high increase? Probably not. These are times when Pakistan is a broken economy struggling to survive, with almost half of that nation now under Taliban; and its nuclear weapons most certainly under American control (as any defence expert would confidently assert). Then why was such a sudden increase undertaken? Is it simply an ‘election time deal’? Another issue worth mentioning is how, though Laloo has made a Rs. 90,000 crore surplus with Railways, the same is not being passed on to the people in the form of better facilities, more production and jobs etc. At the same time, the public sector this year making a profit of a staggering Rs. 90,000 crore plus, proved two things! Firstly was proved that the argument – that public sector is by nature loss making – is total garbage. It is made loss making when public money is to be transferred to private hands by taking huge bribes. But more importantly, and secondly, the whole situation showed how money wasn’t a real problem in this budget, but actually the lack of imagination.

Given the scenario, the government could have done more with respect to rationalization of corporate and income tax as that could have boosted more demand in the market than what would be achieved through the increased borrowing of and spending by the government. At another extreme, an incredible increase in non plan expenditure to the tune of Rs. 6,68,082 crore and increased borrowing by the government as a result of an exploding fiscal deficit of Rs. 3,32,835 crore does not portend good for the Indian economy. Times are tough and while fiscal policies would fail (as there is no money to pay taxes in the first place), a monetary policy driven approach of just printing notes would be detrimental for the poor and would give rise to inflation. What the country required was real investment in productive processes and infrastructure. And infrastructure not merely in the form of roads, but in the form of health and education – for a healthy and educated man is far more productive than one who is not. But that required vision and commitment for the nation. What a shame that even in such a crisis period, we had such a futile budget. Didn’t I call for the banning of the Union Budget last year? Even if we disregard that call, if the vote on account budget has to be such a sham, at least this exercise should be banned immediately and the new budget be declared only once the new government comes, which is to happen in any case.

By: Kartik

About the Author:

Irvin Remington

stage is to ensure the organisational chart clearly represents the management responsibility of each department and activity area. Financial accountancy and cost accounting should be integrated and aligned to enable detailed management information reporting and accurate financial records for each activity.

The cost and management information reporting system should be focused upon critical items where management action influences the financial result. Before setting the revenue budget the managing director, advised by the financial director or management accountant, should identify all crucial elements of the business that may have an impact on future financial performance.

Having established the departmental responsibility for producing the budget and the critical items that will be monitored the accountant should prepare budget templates and hold pre-budget meetings with the departmental heads. At these series of meetings the department heads will receive the budget templates and discuss the detail required and the timetable for submission.

Management responsibility for producing the departmental budget is crucial to achieving the financial targets and can be greatly enhanced by relating bonus payments to the level of achievement.

The work of the management accountant is to receive all the departmental budgets and put them together in a final budget for approval by the directors. Throughout the budget approval process adjustments are likely to be required to reach the overall financial objectives but once finalised each budget should be signed off by the department head responsible.

Simply taking the previous years numbers and adding a percentage is a simple solution to preparing the next year budget but is likely to be of poor quality. Quality comes from department heads and managers generally taking responsibility for their own areas of activity and agreement to the detailed financial parameters.

The sales budget critical areas are the list of individual products, additions and deletions from the existing product range, the volume of sales by product and the selling price including any proposed changes. In addition all sales channels, advertising plans, promotion and marketing campaigns should be evaluated to support the sales plan.

Sales administration costs including representatives, sales office and overheads of the sales function need to be evaluated and related directly to achieving sales budget. The higher variability included in the sales department costs can be a distinct advantage. For example, relating the numbers to be employed directly to the sales volume to be achieved, staff bonuses payable on achieving the objectives.

The production budget should start not from the numbers of people employed in the past but be set according to the numbers required to produce the budgeted production volume of the future.

The budget approval process is an ideal opportunity to consider in detail the business overheads, staff numbers and qualities required to drive the business forward. Fixed costs may be incorporated into some areas to ensure the administrative costs are controlled.

For example, a works canteen may have a fixed cost to be paid by the business each month. It would then be the responsibility of the canteen manager to provide the employees with the service required while budgeting to set the price of those services at a level which ensured the contribution from the company created a break even position each accounting period.

Too many businesses set budgets for the future based upon historical costs and sales volumes which are divorced from management responsibility. By budgeting with individual management responsibility for achieving the financial targets the overall performance of the business can be better managed and controlled to achieve the desired financial performance.

A prime responsibility of the management accountant is to evaluate the critical areas in cost accounting, ensure those areas are aligned to management responsibility and present the revenue budget compared to the financial accounts to enable the organisation to achieve and extend its financial performance.



By: Terry Cartwright

About the Author:

Daren Iwasaki

I’m bored asked:


I have to admit I’ve never been the best at shopping smart. I started using coupons just recently. I just have no clue how to budget. If you mommies could please give me some tips and advice on how to shop on a budget I’d greatly appreciate it!

I was unsure of what category to put this in…

-Thanks

Clifford Mouritsen

Money Budgeting is a phrase that either bores them too much, or makes them depressed. But, this is how successful people deal with money – they budget. It’s a lesson that must be learned to succeed financially in this life. Here is some helpful information.

Many people are lured into the trap of spending more money each week than they are bringing in and most people are doing this without even realizing it. The main reason this happens is because we are no longer taught or remember how to budget our money. With the introduction of credit, it has become easier to use money that you don’t actually have.

This lack of money budgeting in today’s world is beginning to reach a cataclysm with many families, and individuals who are now finding themselves with severe debt problems and little knowledge about how to turn their bleak situation around.

Even with all of the bad debt write-offs, banks are more than happy with the way things are. Banks build in their own risk factors based on bad debt in their interest rates to give them profit regardless of bad debt write-offs. Simply put, those borrowing money are paying for their inability to budget effectively.

Tips to Effective Money Budgeting:

The basics of budgeting start with you listing incoming money over a period of time, such as a weekly, monthly or fortnightly, then listing the outgoing money, such as mortgage payments, car re-payments, credit cards and so on. Money budgeting also has many other factors used to make it effective, including keeping a constant eye on how your budget is doing and changing it to accommodate unexpected problems without overspending.

Keep all of your receipts and account for what has been spent. Use this to make calculations as to where your money is going and for what. Expenses can be divided into four main categories. These are:

-Housing: mortgage, rent, utilities, property taxes, insurance, etc.

-Work: transport, parking, work clothes, lunches and if you have children, day care

-Living: food, clothing, medication, insurance, etc.

-Personal: entertainment, newspapers, magazines, alcohol, gifts and education, etc.

Once you have categorized all of your bills, take out a blank piece of paper and a calculator. Figure out what is being spent each month on these categories and what can be cut out of the budget to allow more money to go toward bills or improving your financial situation.

Many people get so used to luxuries, they turn these things into fixtures in their weekly, fortnightly or monthly spending habits. By weeding these expenses out or making them a luxury again that is only enjoyed occasionally, you can also save quite a substantial amount of money. When you go through your spending habits, you will be able to calculate how much you are actually spending on these things.

Don’t forget that a contingency fund should always be factored into any money budget. This works out to be around 10 % of your income. A contingency fund will benefit you when you need it the most, such as when you lose your job or have an unexpected expense such as plumbing go wrong in your home. This contingency fund should be kept in a separate savings account and only accessed in emergencies.

Motivation Is The Key:

Motivation is very important when you are budgeting. As an incentive to create a budget and stick to it, remember that the only way to regain wealth is by spending less money than you are receiving. The only way to spend less and do more with your money is to learn how to effectively budget it and stick to your plan.

Once you start to see the benefits of your budgeting and are rewarded with more money in your bank account after you have finished paying out, you will be more encouraged than ever to budget your money.

Another way to teach yourself to budget is to give yourself a solid incentive to stick to it, and make your budget work. You may make it your goal to get your finances in order, so that you can take a vacation or get something that you and your family really wants. Place reminders on your fridge or in your wallet. By doing this, you will be reminding yourself of the reason you have decided to sacrifice some of your luxury spending.

Although this sounds great, when you budget, you will have to learn to set aside any emotions that you may feel toward your budget. Examples of emotions getting in the way and interfering with a well planned budget is when you have to cut out the things that you want, such as weekend breaks away, toys for your children or new furniture, for a while, until you have arranged your finances for the better better.

If you have a family, try to keep them involved in your money budgeting and where the budget needs to be tightened to benefit everyone to exclude non-essentials, explain to family members why budgeting is important. This will help to educate those around you about the importance of budgeting and how budgeting can help you all obtain the things that you want, such as luxuries, without them being a financial burden.

Another trap many people fall into is getting into the habit of ‘keeping up with the Jones’ regardless of their own personal financial situations. After all, money budgeting is about your personal set of circumstances and your personal finances, not someone else’s. Just because your neighbors have just bought the latest model car or had cable television installed, doesn’t mean that you have to, pay attention to your budget and let it be your decider on whether you can afford the things that you want.

Budgeting is a vital skill needed to control your finances and avoid getting into serious debt. By educating yourself on how to budget effectively, taking the time to carefully plan a good budget and monitoring it regularly you will be able to keep yourself and your family encouraged to stick with it.

Set achievable goals and even though, at first, money budgeting may seem tough, it is the only way to have the things that you want, as well as a secure financial future.



By: Ken Black

About the Author:

Marty Silton

Angrygirl5 asked:


Hi, I am writing an article on budgeting. I am looking for unique budgeting ideas. For example, I talked to a lady today that only uses cash and she organizes her cash in one of those coupon organizers. For example, she puts money for food under one tab, car insurance under another, etc. Let me know if you have a helpful budgeting tip. Ideally, be sure you allow email in your preferences. If I decide to use your technique, I may need to contact you for more information. Thanks.

Earnest Majer

There are many things that will influence our financial lives, but perhaps nothing influences our finances and our financial future quite as much as a realistic and properly followed household budget. All too few of us have learned how to budget properly, and this failure to create a household budget can lead to all manner of financial ills.

One of the main reasons so many of us fail to create a budget is that we feel that creating a budget is overly complicated. In fact, creating a budget does not need to be at all difficult. Creating a budget can be as simple as writing down each expense and keeping track of it for a month.

The easiest way to do this is to carry around a simple budget sheet, which can be as simple as a small notebook. Into this budget sheet, write each item you purchase, from that morning cup of coffee to the muffler on your car. At the end of each week, enter this budget data into your favorite spreadsheet or budgeting program, assigning each expense a category as you go. This simple strategy will make it a great deal easier to keep track of your expenses going forward.

Often this simple budget exercise is a great eye opener for consumers, and a great way to recapture money that has been leaking out of your pocket. After all, that $4 daily cup of coffee may not seem like much, until your budget shows you that forgoing it by making coffee at home could save you over $100 per month. Those weekly dinners out may not seem like that big a deal, until your budget shows you where you could cut back without impacting your lifestyle.

The usefulness of the monthly budget is endless, and knowing where your money is coming from, and where it is going, is an essential first step when it comes to getting a handle on your finances. Until you take the time to establish and stick to a realistic budget, you may be unable to get a true picture of your financial situation.

There are many things families and individuals can do to improve their financial situation, from landing that promotion to taking on a second job. Few things will provide as much power, however, as finally sitting down and creating that household budget. The budget is the most basic of all financial documents, and it is important to take the bull by the horns and get that budget under control. Creating a budget is not easy, but the rewards are great.



By: Mike Freemen

About the Author:

Bryon Houseal

EastonJewelry asked:

Instructions on how to make soldered jewelry on a very small budget

Eun Falero