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Budgeting Your Way to Financial Freedom


Financial freedom cannot be achieved without budgeting. Budgeting involves tracking your sources of income and more importantly tracking your expenses. It is novel tool for controlling your expenses and making you aware of how you spend your money. At the outset, budgeting may seem to be onerous and boring, particularly for those of us who hate numbers. But once you realize the benefits emanating from it, you will find it an interesting exercise. Even businesses, whether small or large, use budgeting as a tool to achieve their financial goals. It is, in fact, an integral part of managing an organization.

Benefits of budgeting:

Helps to control impulse buying.

Helps to control your expenses.

Ensures that you pay your bills on time.

Helps you to borrow money when you need it.

Helps you by not defaulting on your loan repayments, thus, protecting your credit rating.

Helps you to save money which can routed to different investment vehicles that can in turn help you build your net worth over a period of time.

The budgeting process

The first step in the budgeting process is to determine your net worth.

Your net worth = the value of all your assets less all the liabilities or loans that you owe.

The second step is to identify your sources of income and the amount from each source. Your sources of income could be salary, business income, investment income such as dividends, interest, rent. Your most recent tax return and bank account can be an excellent source for identifying your income sources.

The third step is to identify your expenditure items such as groceries, entertainment, mortgage payments, loan repayments, housing repairs, transportation, taxes.

Prepare a spreadsheet with the following columns: a) description for each item in the two sections viz. income and expenditure b) actual amount c) budget amount d) difference (between actual and budget amount) e) reason to be given if the actual amount exceeds the budget amount.

It is very important to ensure that you provide at least 10% of your gross income towards savings. A formula should be in place in your budget spreadsheet that will automatically calculate 10% of your gross earnings. The objective of budgeting will be defeated if it does not lead to targeted savings.

Budgeting should generally be done on a monthly basis. It is very important for you to enter all the amounts that you spend into the spreadsheet. This will require a disciplined approach but in the long-run, it would definitely be worth it. Keep a separate paper file for each year divided into sections based upon the items of income and expenditure for filing your bills.

Read More Free Investment, Wealth Creation & Personal Finance Articles & Tutorials at: http://www.global-investment-institute.com/

The Global Investment Institute has been setup to aid people in the pursuit of a better lifestyle through managing their money effectively, investing wisely and wealth planning for their future.


MORE RESOURCES:

Los Angeles Times

PERSONAL FINANCE: Will that housing deal help you?
Reuters
By Linda Stern | WASHINGTON Feb 9 (Reuters) - The housing settlement announced Thursday should make it easier for troubled homeowners to modify their mortgages and escape foreclosure, but it won't make everyone whole, consumer advocates say.
Homeowners Receive $25 Billion Mortgage Settlement, But Is It Enough?U.S. News & World Report (blog)

all 3,685 news articles »


PERSONAL FINANCE: Should employees own more company stock or less?
Reuters
By Chris Taylor | NEW YORK Feb 10 (Reuters) - If you're a high-ranking executive like Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook, company stock is your best friend. He received a reported $375 million in restricted stock for 2011, one of the largest pay packages on record ...

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PERSONAL FINANCE: Why pedigreed pooches cost more
Reuters
(The writer is a Reuters contributor. The opinions expressed are her own.) By Alina Dizik NEW YORK Feb 9 (Reuters) - Bruce, a Finnish Lapphund who's best described as a Pomeranian meets Alaskan Husky, will attend the canine equivalent of the Oscars for ...

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Simple sketches break down personal finance
Park Record
Richards said Marrouche's take on personal finance is pretty common. "I don't know many people who aren't frustrated with their money," he said. "Smart, educated, successful people still get frustrated, and part of that is because it's gotten so ...

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PERSONAL FINANCE: Pet insurance-a costly necessity
Reuters
By Heather Struck | NEW YORK Feb 9 (Reuters) - After Nicole Bodzon, 28, a consultant in Conifer, Colorado, paid $1600 for her pug, Pepe, to have a possibly cancerous tumor removed from his eye, she thought she might benefit from an insurance policy.

and more »


Mortgage Rates & Trends

Bankrate: Mortgage Rates Up Slightly
Sacramento Bee
About Bankrate, Inc. (NYSE: RATE) Bankrate is a leading publisher, aggregator and distributor of personal finance content on the Internet. Bankrate provides consumers with proprietary, fully researched, comprehensive, independent and objective personal ...
Thursday's Personal Finance StoriesMarketWatch

all 220 news articles »


PERSONAL FINANCE-Better than a mattress: money fund tips
Reuters
The top-yielding bank savings accounts and money market deposit accounts are paying 0.8 percent to 0.9 percent, said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at personal finance website Bankrate.com. "That's 20 times the yield," McBride says.

and more »


Friday's Personal Finance Stories
MarketWatch
Also in today's Personal Finance news on MarketWatch, Jennifer Waters takes a look at how our car insurance rates are calculated and shares that while we might think we're saving money on an economy car, the higher insurance rates may wipe out those ...



6 personal finance tips for new Canadians
CBC.ca
Besides the challenge of settling into a new home and culture, immigrants to Canada face a host of issues when it comes to getting their financial lives in order and planning for their retirement. But there's one thing Canadians all have in common: the ...

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Personal Finance: Favorable changes ahead for 401(k)s
Chattanooga Times Free Press
By Chris Hopkins Defined contribution plans like 401(k)s have long ago become the dominant vehicle for retirement saving and investment. Between 1990 and 2011, plan assets have expanded nearly fivefold to $4.3 billion. And yet, it has often been the ...

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