Sick and tired of being in debt? There’s one weapon in your personal finance arsenal that can inflict more damage on your debt than any other. That weapon is a budget. Want to know why budgeting is important? Does budgeting really even matter?
- Curb excessive spending
- Resolve past debts
- Afford major purchases
- Save for college funds or retirement
Understanding the advantages provided by a balanced and effective household budget is the first step on the road to greater financial security. It’s also the key to realizing exactly why budgeting is important.
You Need a Map!
Financial experts cite a household budget as one of the key resources for financial success. For example, a detailed family budget can provide a better understanding of income, expenses, and other aspects of financial management. These important details have a large impact on the net worth of a household.
Budgets also serve as a road map. This map allows families to more easily spot any aspects of their spending and daily routine that are putting excessive strain on their finances.
From fixing the financial mistakes of the past to saving for the future, effective budgeting is of paramount importance for families struggling to manage their financial situation.Effective budgeting is of paramount importance for households struggling to manage money Click To Tweet
Creating a Basic Budget
Basic budgets are often little more than a ledger used to track income and expenses. However, it’s not uncommon for those who have little experience dealing with financial matters to feel lost or overwhelmed when it comes to creating a budget.
That overwhelmed feeling is normal! Better yet, it can be easily overcome.
A good initial step is to spend a few weeks tracking and recording purchases. Then, create a realistic budget based off of these transactions. Keep in mind debt reduction plans and savings goals when considering how much to allocate to each budget expense.
Other tools and resources that may be of assistance throughout the process may include:
- Accounting software that allows more detailed budgets to be created with ease (Here’s the free program that my family switched to a couple of years ago. It’s simple, yet powerful, and is helping us to pay off our mortgage at light speed!)
- Smartphone applications for maintaining a budget while on the go
- Budgeting methods, such as double-entry bookkeeping or the envelope method
Planning for the Future
Lack of foresight and preparation will complicate efforts to gain a brighter financial future. Even household budgets that are able to produce only modest savings on a monthly or annual basis can make a tremendous difference in the long run.
Think about it; saving just $20 a month will yield an extra $240 each year.
That’s why making a plan (also known as a budget!!) is so important. Effective budgeting is the single most important step towards achieving larger financial goals.
Want to become debt-free?
Stick to a budget.
Need to create a comfortable and secure retirement?
Build a budget.
Tired of living paycheck to paycheck?
Use a budget.
Have trouble spending less than you make?
Create a budget.
Then stick to it like glue 🙂
Overcoming Common Budgeting Obstacles
Simply creating a budget is not sufficient to ensure that households will be able to get a better handle on their financial situation. Some common mistakes that will doom a budget to failure are:
- Forgetting to record transactions (I am SO guilty of this one!)
- Inconsistency when it comes to staying within the spending limits
- Not making financial management a top priority
These are just a few costly financial mistakes that households often make. Ensuring that the budget is frequently updated and well maintained will optimize its financial benefits.
But, just because an established budget is able to meet the current needs of a household, that does not always mean it will continue to do so in the future.
Revisiting the budget monthly in order to assess its effectiveness and make any changes that may be needed is always a prudent move. Copying over the last month’s budget and making any adjustments only takes a few minutes.
Common issues that may require a budget to be updated may include:
- Opening a new financial account
- Change of employment status
- Paying off old debts
- Overspending or underspending in certain categories
Understand Why Budgeting is Important
A comprehensive household budget that is properly maintained and kept up to date is a powerful financial tool. Any household can use this weapon to reduce expenses, maximize savings and better prepare themselves for any financial challenges they may encounter in the days ahead.
A comprehensive household budget that is properly maintained is a powerful tool Click To TweetYour budget is a weapon– a powerful weapon in your war on debt. Now go out and use that tool effectively!
Do you use a budget? If not, what’s holding you back? Any questions about why budgeting is important?
Advice for the budgeting newbie:
Brand new to budgeting? I highly recommend jumping on board with an all-cash, envelope budget. This type of budget will reveal any spending problems and reign in the potential “IOU shuffling” that comes when just beginning the budgeting process.
Is this idea of money management completely foreign?
Does the thought of wading through expenses and income, insurance, and investments give you the willies? Join the free Hack Your Financial Future course. This course (again, free, how awesome is that?) will give you the encouragement and tools necessary to confidently conquer debt and discover financial freedom.
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All about having a plan for your money. Often people view budgets as a negative, being restrictive, but the actually tell your money were to go and give you flexibility to spend on the things you value. Great tips!
Budgets “give you flexibility to spend on the things you value”. Yes! It can be hard to get that super-freeing idea across to someone who has no experience with budgeting and just sees the process as negative. That’s really the point though, the budget allows for money better, more enjoyably, and more profitably spent.
Budgets are so important. We’ve actually been without one for a couple years since we’ve moved and I’ve felt a bit lost. We buy everything on credit cards, so we can track everything even if we get behind, but I’ve missed out on the plan before hand aspect. Tax season for us now, so we’ll get up to date again and see where that takes us. (hopefully to a budget)
You’ve stumbled onto yet another important aspect of learning how to budget; once you’ve run a family budget for a while, a temporary reprieve from budgeting doesn’t mean that everything falls to pieces. Kind of like riding a bike 🙂 Once you’ve learned the skill, you’re able to keep track (even if subconsciously) of whether or not your finances are on track. I hope you are able to climb on the budgeting “wagon” again. We started using EveryDollar.com a few years ago, have you heard of it? Super simple and way less time setting up each month’s budget than we used to spend. Since you’re a credit card user, you could also take advantage of their option to automatically import transactions into the program. Talk about helpful! Thanks for swinging by, Emily.
You are right in saying that simply creating a budget is not going to solve anything; it has to be used! Like you, I’m often very slow at inputting my expenditures. But here’s the thing: You don’t have to attain perfection in order to make progress. I continue to be imperfect in following a budget, but trying has been essential to our progress – and we’re 2/3 of the way to complete debt-freedom!
Woohoo! I’m cheering alongside you!