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 determined that the amounts you’ve budgeted for are reasonable to you and are priorities to you. Build a column on your budget and label it as “Plan”, “Blueprint” or “Target”. Move or insert your monthly numbers to this column. Insert an “Actual” or “Spent” column followed by a “Difference” or “Variance” column. You should have three columns on your budget worksheet in addition to the “Category” column. Congratulations, you’ve now developed your budget blueprint and the actual budgeting can now begin.