Budgeting - Consider a Less Labor Intensive Approach

Budgeting is an essential task for anyone who has a set income. Many feel that living on a budget is necessary, yet difficult to implement especially over an entire family with different schedules and needs . Tracking down all of your bills and working out a schedule to pay them can take hours. Then, every month it seems you have to readjust the budget to take care of unexpected expenses, not to mention the hours a person can spend logging every purchase. Here are some suggestions if you are looking to create a budget for yourself:

Consolidate your bills.

Bundle together whatever services you can onto one bill. This will create less paperwork to keep track of every month and reduce the time you spend writing checks or going from website to website to pay bills. Less paperwork to track will probably also reduce your chances of getting hit with a late payment fee.

Transfer balances on your credit cards

Find a new low interest credit card, or save yourself hours by transferring all of your balances to the credit card you currently have with the lowest interest rate. One card is easier to manage than several different cards.

Pay off as many debts as you can.

If you don’t have a lot of time to look at your budget, pay off the loans you have with the smallest balances first. While you might pay a little more in interest by doing this, you will have a lot less to keep track of. As long as you’re paying off debt, you’re making progress towards your financial goals.

Only categorize your monthly bills.

In other words, make a budget for your utilities and loan payments, then take the remaining amount of money and put 30% of it aside in savings. Divide the remaining amount by four to get the amount of money you should consider disposable income.

Stop tracking every single purchase.

Rather than spending a lot of time writing down every single purchase, try writing down just the total amount of what you spent. Rounding up to the nearest dollar will cut out a potential unnecessary headache. As you spend throughout the week, just make sure that you do not go over the amount you should for that week.

Deal with only two accounts.

Keep one savings account and one checking account. Keeping track of the balances in multiple accounts takes too much time and leaves you prone to paying more overdraft fees. Pick one bank and keep all of your money there.

Living on a regimented budget can help you get out of a financial crisis or avoid getting into one. It gets a bit more complicated when involving multiple family members, but also becomes more necessary as well.

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