Stay In Control Of Your Budget
Keeping track of your personal budget can be difficult at first. It requires not only good organization with your receipts, but also the dedication necessary for maintaining a strict record of all your transactions. It is very easy to forget just how much little things can add up, and at the end of the month or week, you will be shocked by how little is left. Small scale, practical solutions are the easiest way to start.
The very first thing anyone should do when starting out with their own personal budget, is leave all plastic at home. Go out once a week, with a bank card in hand, to withdraw money and do a few other little chores. Pay for as much as you can with cash. If that means physically walking into the gas station sometimes, so be it. Just make sure you don’t cave and treat yourself to a Snickers for being so responsible for a change. Guess how much more that costs than the service charge. If you guessed “the same amount doubled”, you’d be right.
Add up the little things you did spend cash on when the first week is over. If you don’t want to eliminate anything, don’t. This isn’t about saving, it’s about budgeting. It’s not about not spending money, it’s about knowing what you spend. You can have as many small purchases you want each week.
Throw in a handful of other charges, such as using a debit card pretty much anywhere, or using an ATM that doesn’t belong to your bank. These have their own little charges, and your bank may not be very happy with you giving even a few cents to their competition and help themselves to as much as two whole dollars. This is all outlined in the very center of a six-page boiler plate document with microscopic text.
Check Cards are another little trap. They have a little credit card logo on the front, so you think you’re doing a “credit” transaction, but all that’s really happening is, the money is being taken right out of your account like a debit card. You already know that. I hope you also know that sometimes these cards are read as debit. If you have the option to swipe it yourself, great. Choose credit and bypass the service charge. But sometimes the clerk doesn’t ask. And sometimes it can only be done as debit. Check Cards are risky business.
The little things add up. Look at all the little things you didn’t need for the first week with no plastic and add them all up. Go ahead and attempt to work some of it into the actual budget. It’s possible to squeeze in lots of little purchases all week, as long as you know you’re going to do it ahead of time. And then, when you don’t do half of them, that’s a little more money, which might be able to be used for those same things again next week, but now twice.
If you can maintain without your card for the whole week, you’ll find the second one is a lot easier. You might even find yourself getting the generic brand more often than the one you really want. If you can afford to shop at Nob Hill or Andronico’s, why are you reading this?
Keeping track of your budget can be hard in the beginning. Make sure you organize all your receipts, as well as keep strict records of all your transaction. Little things will add up quickly, but not quickly enough that you will have forgotten by next time. You might be shocked how little is left at the end of the month or week. Just be aware of everything you spend, big purchases and small.
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