A couple of years ago, my budgeting skills were so bad, I couldn’t even manage to pay my bills on time, because I simply didn’t know when they were due! There was a huge stack of mail on my desk, sitting unopened, just looming in front of me. But thanks to my Aunt, I’ve learned a simple method to budgeting. It’s so easy, even a child could learn to budget with this plan!
Step One: Buy a Composition book
Step Two: You’ll need a pen! Open up your new book all the way to the last double pages. On the top of the left page, write Weekly Budget, then underneath, write your weekly income amount. Repeat this on the right page, only instead of writing weekly, write Monthly and then your monthly income underneath.
Step Three: This is the hard part! Compile all your bills and write their names under your income on the left side of the page. For example:
Electric
Car Payment
Phone
Car Gas
Insurance
etc….
Do the same under your monthly income as well.
Step Four: Now you need to write the amount of each monthly bill on the right side of the page. Divide those amounts by 4, then on the left page, under your weekly budget, write the amount of each bill per week.
Example: Your electric bill is $150.00 per month. Divide $150.00/4 = $37.50. Now you know you need $37.50 each week to pay the electric bill.
Repeat this process until all your monthly bills have been divided by 4 and be sure to write them down in the weekly budget section.
Step Five: Add up all your weekly bills, then subtract that amount from your weekly income. This tells you how much your bills cost you each week. Now add up all your monthly bills and subtract from your monthly income.
Budgeting doesn’t have to be difficult! If you take the time initially, it will save your hundreds of dollars, not to mention huge amounts of time in the future!
Vanessa Hamlin is the Homemaker of the 21st Century. A free blog dedicated to helping women succeed at being Homemakers in the 21st Century!
Tags: budget, budgeting, budgeting tools, personal budgeting, personal finance budgeting, tips on budgeting
Leave a Reply