Evan Vitale

Evan Vitale – Improve Your Budget This Year

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By Evan Vitale

Happy New Year!

Now, let’s really get down to work – starting today – in making 2017 a great year for you by taking the necessary steps in erasing (or significantly lowering) your debt and improving your budget.

The beginning of the year is a good time to take a look at your expenses and your debt and making some good decisions to start the year off fresh.

Ready? Here we go:

  • Take a look at where your budget is leaking money. Make there are some unpredictable expenses or, perhaps, you didn’t account for some extra income (which is always nice). Fine tune your budget to completely fill in the gaps so as to make your budget more accurate.
  • Analyze your spending and see if there is anything out of the normal. Check your budgeted categories and make sure that they are realistically reflecting your lifestyle. Make necessary adjustments.
  • Check to see if you are buying too many of one or two items. For example, how much money are you spending each year on those extra “lattes” every day at your local coffee shop or, perhaps, are you spending too much money (and too often) on music downloads; DVDs; books; movie tickets or eating out at lunch. Work hard on reducing these amounts.
  • Re-evaluate your overall plan so that you can have the funds needed in order to reduce your debt (such as credit card debt) or to start saving more.

By studying; analyzing and re-working your budget, you can make logical changes to reduce extra spending; plug holes in your budget for unexpected expenses and work harder in the upcoming new year to erase debt and build more wealth.

 

Evan Vitale – Staying On Track With Your Budget Resolutions

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By Evan Vitale

Congratulations! You’ve made it one month into 2016 and, hopefully, you’re still on track with your personal budget resolutions.

Of all the resolutions you may have made on January 1 – losing weight, finding a new job, breaking a bad habit, etc. – your budget resolution may be the most important one.

A recent study conducted by the University of Scranton shows that more than half of those who set budget resolution goals give up within the first three months. However, those who made it to the six-month mark, stayed on track for the entire year.

If you haven’t created a persona budget for 2016, it’s never too late to get started. If you have a budget, now is a good time to review it.

Here some other things you should consider when creating or reviewing your personal budget:

  • Try to put a little bit aside as an emergency fund. This way, you’ll always be ready for the unexpected. Typically, an emergency fund covers approximately three-to-six months of daily expenses. Hopefully, you’ll never need to tap into those funds, but it will give you peace of mind knowing emergency funds are available if such an emergency arrives.
  • Be it computer software or paper, make sure you set up a system for your budget that you are comfortable with using. Daily remembers on due dates and other action items will help you pay bills on time and avoid penalties and late fees.
  • Review your retirement plan, investments and benefits, whether you are employed or self-employed. It might be a good time to have an “update” meeting with your financial planner and/or a meeting with your benefits supervisor at your office.
  • Try to save. Adjust spending, cut back on a few extras here or find other ways to bring in more income.

Keep going on your budget resolution!

Evan Vitale – Starting A Budget in 2016

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By Evan Vitale

We all make resolutions for the new year: exercise more, lose weight, stop smoking, etc. However, a great personal goal you can set up and follow (starting today) is creating a simple budget and sticking to it.

Budgets are often ignored in most households. In fact, that’s how we sometimes get into trouble when it comes to savings, credit problems and not having enough money to make ends meet each month.

How can you solve this problem?

First, be aware of how much you spend each day, week and month. This means keeping track of what you spend every day, even on minor purchases such as coffee, lunch, magazine purchases, etc.

Second, create budget categories, such as:

  • Food
  • Clothing
  • Utilities
  • Lawn care
  • Entertainment
  • Household
  • Gifts
  • Auto
  • Vacation
  • Medical and Dental
  • Insurance
  • Taxes
  • Education
  • Mortgage/Rent
  • Savings

Using your checkbook, computer program, spreadsheets, receipts, etc., calculate what you spent in each category over the last year. For example your electric/heating bills, monthly mortgage/rent payment, etc. In some cases, you will find that expenses are the same each month, like rent for example.

Some categories might be a little more difficult. Take your monthly electric/heating bill, for instance. Some months, it might be higher because you needed to rely more on your furnace or air conditioner. That’s OK. Use the highest utility invoice as a base amount for your budget. If your largest utility bill was $100, then calculate your monthly budget at $100 for each month. Obviously, many months are going to be well below that amount, so you can adjust your budget accordingly as you progress each month. Note: saving $30 on your April utility bill doesn’t mean that you’re going to unnecessarily spend $30 on a steak dinner. Instead, you can shift the “extra” funds to another budget category or, better yet, put it into savings.

If you create a budget – and stick to it – you’ll always have the funds on hand to make necessary payments on time, build your nest egg savings account and have some cash in case of emergency.

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Check out another blog by Evan Vitale at http://evanvitale.net.