Budget Beware

The newspapers have carried quite a number of articles on consumer debt and the benefits of budgetting the past few weeks. The timing for these articles co-incides with credit billing periods following the holiday season. Too many households stretch their budgets thin...

Budgeting 102

The first stage to responsible budgeting is setting your own parameters or limits. Sit down with whoever contributes income to the household. Ask yourselves what you feel is reasonable to spend on different items or categories. Some categories are easy – these...

Budget Continues

Once you’ve determined and recorded your fixed costs a pool of money should be left over. This is where lifestyle enrichment gets funded. That is your next step in developing a solid budget – determine your lifestyle expenses. Develop a series of...

Almost There – Keep to the Process

You now have a better handle on your income and expenses. We are at the final stages in preparing a good, workable budget. We are also at a pivotal budget stage – reasonableness! Your budget has to satisfy your goals. To do that, you have to define those goals...

Budget Beware – Here You Come!

If you’ve followed all the preceding steps you should be staring at a workable budget. The budget will have a rough blueprint as to expenses, lifestyle satisfaction and goal satisfaction but treat this draft as exactly that – a blueprint. You’ve...