How to maintain a budget and save more money

hi dandyandy

welcome to CreditMagic forum

I hope by following the below mentioned tips on saving money you will be able to cut down your unnecessary expenses and increase your income level:

1 List all sources of income from you and your spouse if you are married You are going to use your base pay and pay stubs to obtain this information. DO NOT nclude overtime pay or bonuses that you get in this computation. The reason being is that it will not always be part of your paycheck. There is no gaurantee you will get a bonus or overtime. Even if you are able to have overtime or bonuses, that is considered "extra money". Depending on your pay cycle, you want to use a pay stub with all the deductions for medical, union dues, long term disability insurnace, and any other AFTER-TAX deductions you may have. You will also want to use a paystub that has none of these after tax deductions too. Add the 2 net totals of the paystubs together, and that is you net monthly income. That is waht you have to use to live on each month. If you are a 2 income household, do the same thing with BOTH persons paychecks. You can also maintain a household budget to save your money properly.The book mentioned at the bottom this post will have further information about using paychecks with different pay cycles and variable income.

2 List all of yuour debt obligations. You are going to list the current balance you owe and the monthly MINIMUM payment that is on the respective statements. DO NOT list what you pay each month, just the MINIMUM payment. This would include, auto loans, credit cards, mortgage, home equity loans or lines of credit that you owe or a second mortgage, and student loans and any other debts that you may have that you pay monthly.

3 List all your monthly expenses, such as cable, cell phone, telephone, utilitles, groceries, clothing, medication, life, auto and home insurance, licneses tabs, property taxes,gifts for birthdays and holidays, medicine, co-pay for doctor visits, hair cuts, club dues, magazine or news paper subscriptions etc. Be sure to list the amount you pay on these each month. If some of these items are not paid monthly, then list the amount you would bay if it were a monthly expense. For example, property taxes, if not included in your mortage payment are on an annual bases. Take the total amount you owe for the year and divide it by 12. This will give you and fairly good estimate of the monthly amount you would need to set aside each month to be able to pay when the taxes are due

3 Total your income from all sources. Be sure to use NET INCOME only.

5 Total the balances of all your debt. Then total the monthly minimum payments.

6 This will become your spending plan and it must balance. The amount of income should be equal to the amount of monthly minimum payments of all of your debt. If it does not, then you will need to look at your monthly expenses for ways to reduce the spending in various areas so that you will be able to have enough funds each month to cover your debt payments and expenses.

It may take a few tries to get it to balance, but once you do, then put your numbers in your computer.

You should have also received the e-book version of Money for Life and the e-version of the Money for Life Workbook. The work book should have some forms in it that you can click on and then print them out and use them to input your numbers on paper first. The work book also provides help in putting your numbers together to create your spending plan. I would suggest reading the BOTH BOOKS PRIOR to beginning this task. This will eliminate the frustrations you have been experiencing

I would also suggest giving the Customer Support folks a call. They are very knowlegible and an excellent source for help.

Hope this helps you out.

Richard

thanks richard

This information is very useful. I think everybody will follow these ways to save more money and make their life stress free. From the above discussion one point is clear that maintain a good budget is very crucial. If you don't know how to budget money, then you will never make a balance between your income and expenses.

Well.....here is osme advice, from a single parent. i know sometimes it seems difficult. But..this is what I'm doing. Being on a 'fixed' income, I take so much money, out of my checks ( bi-weekely). Maybe 5% or 10% of my checks. After you take the money out, put the money into a savings account...and keep it there. Every little bit adds up..you'll see!! I know it seems like it would be a long time before you could do anything ( pay off debt, etc), by doing this, BUT..this way you DO have a nest egg' to start with. maybe you can tell yourself, " I will wait until I get $500.00 or $1000.00 before I start to pay things off. this way you have something to 'lean back on'. Hope this helps and makes some sense.

Great advice. Thanks Wendy. From now onwards, I will also follow the above mentioned ways to save more money so that I can maintain my family and cope up with new growing economy.

Yes I do keep savings from my checks. That helps. I feel the above are the best ways to save more money also for any emergency.

I am of the same opinion.

Yes but making it a habit is a must. Just that I am in need today so I save is a bad approach. Our future depends on how we handle our finances and for this we should know how to budget money. So keep it up.

Justin

Just wanna put my ' 2 cents' in ( as usually!!..LOL ) being in the military, I have 'retirement account'. So much of my military checks are deposited into this account, every month. I can 'retire' on this money ..ALSO, if I REALLY need it, I can gt a small loan AQAINST this account. My point is I ( slowly, but, surely) am setting up something I can 'fall back on'. I learning to take things 'day by day'..to handle issues 'day by day'.

So in few words you are securing your future.

Well.....here is osme advice, from a single parent. i know sometimes it seems difficult. But..this is what I'm doing. Being on a 'fixed' income, I take so much money, out of my checks ( bi-weekely). Maybe 5% or 10% of my checks. After you take the money out, put the money into a savings account...and keep it there. Every little bit adds up..you'll see!! I know it seems like it would be a long time before you could do anything ( pay off debt, etc), by doing this, BUT..this way you DO have a nest egg' to start with. maybe you can tell yourself, " I will wait until I get $500.00 or $1000.00 before I start to pay things off. this way you have something to 'lean back on'. Hope this helps and makes some sense

Yes I do keep savings from my checks. That helps. I feel that is the best way we can save money also for any emergency.

I am also saving in two accounts: I have a regular savings with my Credit Union and a 401(k). Its all taken out before I receive my check, so this way its safely put away before I can spend it. This way I have an emergency fund & retirement savings.

Its really a learning when I go through this forum. An experience. Thanks all for your precious participation. :)

I think Richard made MANY valid points... The one I wish I had implemented years ago was not to include OT..... LOL

yea that OT always gets me in trouble when I am budgeting.