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How to
Draw a Successful Personal Budget that Works
by Abdallah Khamis Abdallah
Many people spend their little
income haphazardly without any planning and end up getting broke before
month-end. They then borrow to make ends meet and end up with more
problems that they fail to repay their debts promptly.
However, this is not a prudent
way of managing your personal financial affairs. Planning your personal
financial affairs through prioritization of needs and budgeting income and
expenses is the best way to achieving success in managing your financial
affairs.
It is important first to assess
your financial needs in the short, medium and long term. What are your
financial objectives? What do you want to achieve in the course of time?
Do you have any targets? What is your short, medium and long term needs?
List all of them down.
Next categorize income and
expenses on a monthly basis. Then prioritize expenses into most important,
important and most important. You can use any other weighting or
prioritization formula that works best for you.
After this assess costs based on
consumption per month. Put figures to the expense items. Then write down
your income sources and the amount you earn per month from them. List the
income on the left and the expenses on the right. Add up income amounts
against expense amounts and find the difference to determine surplus or
deficit.
Once you have added and reduced
items and figures several times and you are finally satisfied with the
results, type your figures on a computer spreadsheet or word processor
table and save it. You may also print it and file it for regular
reference.
To make it work successfully for
you, you must vow to stick to the budget. Any deviation must be absolutely
necessary and funds should be made available separately to meet the extra
expenditure. Where no funds are available, some cutbacks or borrowing from
other expense votes. You should ensure that you refund any funds borrowed
from any expense votes to enable the votes to be expended.
To be frank, most people would
want to spend more and more irrespective of their financial ability.
However, arbitrary unbudgeted spending may be hazardous to your financial
health.
Abdallah Khamis Abdallah may be
contacted at http://www.qualitywritingsolutions.com
quantumpro@lycos.com.
Abdallah Khamis Abdallah is a freelance copywriter and ghostwriter
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