At the start of last month I shared with you all, how I work out our monthly budget and I was pleased to get lots of emails from you saying how helpful you’d found it and how much it had helped.
One thing that did come across in the emails was that some people would prefer to have a form that they can print out and use to fill in their income and monthly costs to make it a bit easier. You could do a search online for ‘free downloadable budget planner’ but there are so many options available, many of which are affiliated with various debt management companies or other associations. Also they’re all in different formats – ranging from super simple to extremely complex.
So, because you asked me especially nicely – I’ve made you one of my own to use! It’s not exactly a technical triumph but it one you can download to your computer or print it out and it does it’s job!
I’ve added it to the blog as a page so it’s listed at the top of every page underneath the ‘All About Me’ page. You can go straight to it by clicking here though. The instructions are on the page but basically, you can either print it out or you can download it and save it on your computer if you’d prefer.
I know it can take a little while to work our your budget initially but it’s well worth the time. I genuinely think that without one, you don’t get the full picture of where your money is really going and what areas you need to save on. Once everything (and I mean everything) is written down in black and white, you can start to work out where you need to reduce your spending and how you can reduce your outgoings.
I’m going to be writing tomorrow about what to do if the budget planner says you should have money left over but in reality, you never have as much (if any) left at the end of the month. Also, next week I’ll be sharing some tips about what you can do if your money won’t stretch to pay your bills.
Happy planning.
