Products, rent, loans and “Wishlist” in the form of vacation and large purchases – how to combine everything, and even postpone “for a rainy day”? In a simple language about the budget planning is said by financial adviser Anastasia Tarasova.
We are starting from the shore
Remember the film “Titanic”? When the liner departs from the pier, it is accompanied by a small boat, setting the direction of movement. So you and I, before talking directly about the distribution of finances, need to set the vector of movement and determine the starting point.
What do you have at the moment? What assets, liabilities, expenses and sources of income do you have? You can do this in the format of the table or just write in a free form.
I, as a man of numbers, would prefer a table. You can build it as follows: the names of the columns will have both vertically on the left and horizontally. The top is your sources of income and assets, the vertical on the left – these are your expenses and liability. It is not necessary to calculate everything to the ruble, just get the overall picture.
Then you subtract your expenses and liabilities from all income and assets. If you get a positive amount – excellent, you are on the right track. In the zero area – there is something to improve. If the amount is negative-it’s also not scary, you are already reading this article, it means that you have already begun to change something in your financial situation.
What the budget consists of
Next, it would be nice to figure out how the family budget mechanism functions. All our expenses can be divided into three large categories: long -term, medium and short
-term.
Long -term expenses – These are global goals, like buying a car or apartment.
Medium -term expenses – These are episodic expenses for the year: insurance, taxes, paying for training, clothing, medicine, vacation and the like.
Short -term expenses – These are our daily and monthly expenses. This category includes products, payment of housing and communal services, mobile communications, transport, gasoline, if you have a car, payments on loans.
Getting a salary, most people start with short-term costs, then go to medium-term and, if something remains, put it on large targets.
Your task is to do everything exactly the opposite. First save money for long -term goals, then take care of expenses throughout the year, and only then move on to routine spending.
Why do I need it?
This approach will allow you to be guaranteed to advance to your goals, while providing daily needs, not forgetting about periodic expenses and not allowing “cash gaps”. These are situations when you have to or seize loan to the salary, or frantically look for money to pay insurance.
If you think about it, people know about the payment of insurance in advance, at least for a year, and they could calmly save the money gradually, dividing the upcoming payment into 12 parts. However, the majority thinks: “Why do I need this boredom? I’m not an accountant, I will not spend my life on calculations “.
On the one hand, this is true. On the other hand, planning takes much less time than it seems, but at the same time brings to life that very note of stability and calm, which many are very missing.
A motivation that can support you and help not to go astray, especially at first, there may be goals. Correct goal -setting is extremely important. And it’s even more important not to turn it into a certain carrot on a fishing rod, behind which you are constantly walking, but never reach.
May your goals be real and feasible. Getting what you want, you will strengthen more and more in faith that everything is possible and your budget management system works. And this is a huge incentive not to quit records.
And if loans?
Loans and debts are slightly complicated by the situation with the normalization of the family budget, but in no case should it be an obstacle for a bright financial future.
You need to start working with them with determining the most toxic loan. The one that is the latest and with the largest rate. Be sure to consider these two parameters together, otherwise you can choose the loan that, although with a high rate, is paid for a long time. There is no point in extinguishing such a loan ahead of schedule – all interest on it has already been paid.
After the most disadvantageous debt is found, try to extinguish it ahead of schedule – pay a monthly payment and add on top.
Where to get money for it? At first it will seem that it is impossible.
But you need to act on the principle of “any penny in business” – issue cashback cards, maximize the use of discounts on the usual goods, study the possibility of receiving tax deductions and benefits, and the money that will appear/exempt as a result of these actions, direct to repay a toxic loan.
As soon as this happens, the funds freed from the monthly payment are sent to early repayment of other loans, also sorting them by the principle of toxicity.
A light in the end of a tunnel
Когда долги закончатся, а деньги от ежемесячных платежей освободятся, не спешите их бездумно тратить. Remember your long -term goals.
Accumulate these funds freed from already familiar payments on loans and send them to the financial purposes, which we talked about above. Preferably not on everything at once, but in turn, it will be more effective.
One of the financial purposes may be the creation of a pillow of safety – roughly speaking, a reserve of funds that will help you out if you are left without a source of income or unforeseen expenses arise.