Is the singular source of frustration of every person, on every household on the face of the earth.
It's amazing how this six letter word affects out daily lives, most of the time, without us knowing about it until its time to run the numbers and tally the receipts by the end of each month.
In the past, I never really put much thought into it; something which I fear would be causing me continued episodes of distress towards latter in life.
I admit that I am not one of those who really give much attention on how to effectively budget your money.
I did have a previous notion though of how to budget one's income. Which was, pay what you need to pay and hope that your making enough to actually have something left over for savings.
Often times, I find myself, putting conscious effort into budgeting that I often fall victim to what is called the "recoil effect" wherein, like in one of those countless diet fads, you try to control it, then you end up frustrated because of the slow rate of progress, so you procrastinate and end up binging, meaning you go out of your way and basically throw the calculator and spreadsheets off the window.
So how do one make the most out of the tricky business of monetary management?
Well, I don't want to disappoint you guys as I won't have fancy financial lessons like most people in the biz; but what I do have are some of the top learning points which I've painfully discovered over the years.
You can totally use them to come up with your own conclusion to help you curb the weight of your out of control spending... or hopefully, something of similar effect.
- Budgeting should never be a singular effort. Meaning if you're a family man, or your living in with a significant other, chances are you need to get everybody on board with your plan or you better off not having one at all.
- Budgeting always looks an exciting thing to do at first but it generally turns out too frustrating as you go along.
- Creating a precise budget plan is like writing on a piece of papyrus, which, like the material, somehow finds its way, buried within the catacombs that is your desk .
- Budgeting is never an exact science, although a lot of you out there may frown at this statement, a whole bunch of you are still trying on the budget scheme that actually works for you, despite professional materials being available in the guise of self-help books, accountants, money mentors, etc...
- Resisting unwarranted spending is never easy as it sounds. Most of the time you come up with valid reasons why you "need" to buy that gadget, or that new shirt when you least expect it. Not being able to justify the ends with the means, you'd find yourself caving in more sooner than you think.
- Never start a budget plan when you don't have an exit plan. Most of the time, we forget that we need to set both short term goals and long term goals in our budgeting. This keeps focused on why we are doing it in the first place.
- Never trust your friend's budget strategy. What works for them, may not entirely work for you.
- You'd have to think through dealing with those occasional dine-out bonanza on weekends. Unfortunately. these are the one of the major causes behind the phenomenon of "pocket drain". Which means its better to limit those eat-outs or be without them entirely (unless you deliberately made reservations or funding has been allocated for it).
- People who give advises on how to effectively budget your income are they themselves on the same dilemma like yours.
- Putting your budget in constant surveillance will not guarantee that it'll be intact by the time the next mall sale is out.
I must have tried hundreds of budgeting tactics out there. None has worked so far for me. I guess at the end of it all, it'll all boils down to how determined you are to drive your budget as you plan it.
From what I learned so far, it's really not a matter of number crunching if you think about it. It's actually much to do about your psychology, coupled by your commitment to the seemingly invincible task of sticking to the plan.
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