Never before is a family budget so important as now, the pressure points of threatened interest rises, energy costs escalating, carbon tax, and rates increases has scared the bewillikers out of me, and since becoming a single parent/single income household it really is my responsibility to keep it together, and educate the chilluns at the same time.
I developed a budget, well version 10 at least, two years ago, and it has really helped me lift out of credit debt, travel around the world for a 5 week trip of a lifetime, made it possible to apply for and sustain a mortgage on my own income and put some away for the kids as well. I used ANZ's MoneyManager to build up a future picture of my expenditure, trawled through credit cards, bills and bank statements and looked at my income sources, regular monthly bills, ad-hoc bills and what could be spent on food/incidentals each week. I then kept a fortnightly running sheet of previous balance, income, expenditure and end of fortnight balance to give my cash flow 9 months into the future, wow did that tell a story - May was not a month to look forward to with utilities, car rego, house insurance and rates all due at once, but I could plan for it. I look at it weekly and update it, and live by it.
You've heard the advice of others to have a budget, but heed it, seriously, it gives you complete focus and piece of mind at the same time.
No comments:
Post a Comment