Our budget spreadsheet will now assist you in attacking the remainder of your monthly expenditures. In the prior step you stacked your debt, now we are going to ATTACK the rest of your household obligations.
Our household budget worksheet is quite detailed in it's approach. We have provided specifice budget categories for you to track your monthly income and expenses. However, you maintain the flexibility of changing the catagories to fit your personal preferences.
This monthly budget template was created to encourage you to compare your budgeted amount in each category to your actual spending. Tracking the numbers provides the visual you need to stay focused throughout the month.
Your new family budget spreadsheet, or personal budget planner as you might prefer to call it, is a critical tool in your new financial arsenal. I encourage you to take the time necessary for budgeting money on a monthly basis.
This particular step won't take very long to set up since you already have most of the data at your fingertips from completing your personal financial statement during Step Three. However, you should double check the numbers just to ensure that your budget is reasonable and achieveable.
Budgeting help is right at your fingertips so don't underestimate the value in creating and tracking to a monthly budget. Your budget spreadsheet will reflect the expectations you have established for your personal financial behavior.
EXPECT SUCCESS! - perhaps this excerpt from "Prosperity - How to Attract It!" will help...
As A Man Expecteth, So Is He
We never can get more out of ourselves than we expect. If we expect large thngs, if we hold the large mental attitude toward our work, toward our life, we shall get much greater results than if we depreciate ourselves, and only look for little things.
The habit of expecting great things of ourselves calls out the best that is in us.
No one can become prosperous while he really expects, or half expects, to remain poor. We tend to get what we expect and to expect little is to get little.
We ask little things, we expect little things, and thus we limit our supply.
There is a tremendous power in the habit of anticipating good things, of believing that we shall realize our ambition; that our dreams will come true. Multitudes question their success at the very outset by anticipating bad things, expecting that they are going to fail, that their dreams will never be realized.
The difference between what what two people get out of life, what they accomplish, and what they represent to others, depends upon the difference in what they expect of themselves.
Orison Swett Marden, Author - Prosperity - How to Attract It! |
I provided the above excerpt because I believe it's important that we not only provide you with the necessary budget form and tools you need to change your financial life, but we must also provide you with the insight and motivation you need to ensure your success. You can do this!
In addition, please adhere to the following rules when managing to your budget spreadsheet:
- Define Your Budget - view your household budget spreadsheet as YOUR personal plan to improve your financial life. Don't look at it as a task you must endure. YOur mind-set is critical to your success.
- Know The Purpose of Your Budget - the main purpose of using a budget spreadsheet tool is to ensure that every month you live within your means. If you don't feel like you have enough money, your best option is to pay down your debt and make more money. During this course you will learn how to do both!
- Be Knowledgeable About Your Money - the importance of knowing precisely where your money is coming from and where it is going cannot be overstated. Knowledge is indeed power in this case. By being fully knowledgeable about your money you will more easily and more consistently make better money decisions.
- Be Consistent In How You Organize - in Step Two you organized your financial documents, and you should make sure you organize your budget in a very similar way. Doing this will make managing your financial affairs much simpler.
- Be Aggressive, But Realistic - while you want to use the budget spreadsheet to support attacking your debt, you also want to make certain you live within your means. Pay down your debt as aggressively as possible, but stay focused on meeting all your obligations each and every month. Check yourself regularly by comparing your budget to your cash flow statement and your debt stacker plan.
- Spend Every Dollar On Paper First! - the budget spreadsheet allows you to give every dollar that comes in a specific job. Decide the purpose of every dollar BEFORE it is spent. Spend it on paper first. As the old saying goes, "First plan your work, then work your plan!"
- If You Slip Up, Get Back Up! - don't allow failure to be an option. If you mess up and do not meet your budget the first month, figure out what happened and restart for the next month. You can't fail - unless you quit.
At first you might view the budgeting process as a bit simplistic, but keep in mind that you wouldn't be reading this if you didn't need to make some changes. I firmly believe that you will discover a renewed peace of mind if you follow the steps as they are outlined.
In fact, in Step Seven we'll go even one step further to break down the budget spreadsheet process using a simple system that people have used for over a hundred years to ensure they never overspend.
Back to Step Five Go to Step Seven
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Debt is NOT your friend. It's not a wonderful "tool" for building wealth. That's a myth.
