My Spending Plan

How to organize my expenses to have financial stability?

It would help if you kept certain cares in mind when using your resources to have stability and financial prosperity.

A spending plan is a way to distribute income monthly to cover basic needs, meet commitments, and save and enjoy life.

What is a budget for?

A budget is a basic tool for organizing personal and family finances, and it is the key to saving because it allows us to

1. Know exactly where the money goes.

2. Control spending.

3. Have a financial reserve.

4. Make forecasts.

Expense classification

The essential expenses we must necessarily face cover our basic needs.

The expendables are those that we can postpone, avoid or reduce.

Although each person receives income in different periods, it is essential to organize a monthly spending plan. To do this, we will answer several questions:

Goals: What goals?

Income: How much do you earn?

Categories: What expenses?

Control: How do I control?

Goals: What Goals?

The budget will depend on the stage of life you are living. Therefore, it is important to locate yourself and identify your stage of life, which may include one or more of the following options:

• I am a student

• I am a worker

• I am an entrepreneur

• I am the head of the family

• I am married, single, divorced, widowed.

Activity: Which of these financial goals do you most identify with? (Choose 2)

• That my income is enough for me, and I still have some left.

• Have savings by the end of the year.

• Have my own house/apartment.

• Generate more additional income.

• Reduce my level of debt.

• Other.

Income: How much do you earn?

Then it would help if you recognize your level of income. With the following example, you can understand how much money you have left:

(A) What is your gross monthly income? (+)

(B) How much are your fixed obligations (tax and medical deductions)? (-) How much is the amount available? (A-B) (=)

You can calculate your monthly income based on the above points.

Categories: What expenses?

The expenses must be separated by categories to understand which ones add up to a greater item and if they are essential.

1. Housing (rent/mortgage) _____________(+)

2. Food (supermarket) _____________(+)

3. Utilities (water, electricity, cable, phone) _____________(+)

4. Meals out (restaurants, uber eats, etc) _____________(+)

5. Transport (bus/train, taxi/uber, gas) _____________(+)

6. Other debts (credit cards, personal, other) _____________(+)

7. Savings _____________(+)

8. Health _____________(+)

9. Others and unforeseen _____________(+)

How much do your outputs add-up to ? _____________(=)

Control: How do I control?

At this point, you should review the expenses to adjust (lower or eliminate) to achieve your goals.

Also, you must define a method of planning and registering expenses, for example, Excel or an app like Monefy or similar.

The most important thing is to develop the discipline to plan expenses and control them month by month.

At first, it can be a challenge to keep track of expenses, so to start you should ask yourself the following question: what is your biggest challenge to overcome to control your expenses? (Choose 1)

1. My impulse to purchase.

2. Family support.

3. The lack of habit.

4. Be constant in control.

Now that you are aware of this, you can work on that challenge so that little by little, it has less impact on your plan.

Here are some final tips for your spending plan:

• Generate monthly savings as something fixed.

• Prevent seasonal overspending such as Christmas, school fees, and vacations, among others.

• Pay attention to the correct use of the credit card, to avoid an imbalance in your budget.

• Identify creative ways to render your income in public services, shopping lists in supermarkets, etc.

Contact: Mario Barboza | mbarboza@grupocomeca.com