"Money makes the world go 'round." (I thought that was gravity...) "Gravity makes the world go 'round." Or was that, "The Mint makes the Coin become round?" Or, "Mint settles your stomach..."
"Money talk" can be upsetting to some tender constitutions (hence the mint), so we want to ease your worried mind. We all need money (unless we're dead). Therefore, the better we are at managing money, the more we'll keep and the more we won't have to make later. EVERY person/family needs a budget. Start there. We were living paycheck to paycheck until we started a simple budget:
Steps for creating a Budget:
Write down what you make every payday./for the year.
Write down all your bills every month/for the year and multiply by 12 to get their totals for the year.
Divide everything by the number of paydays for you in a year.
Then divide those numbers into bi-weekly or whatever frequency you get paid, so if you get paid bi-weekly, then there are usually 24 or 26 paydays/paychecks a year.
Then portion your paycheck out every two weeks to cover each bill's requirement for that pay period, so that by the end of the year, (or end of the month) there will be enough savings to pay the bill.
We've created our own spreadsheet budget from scratch (and it has grown over the years as we have added to it as we think of new expenses.) We pretty much have everything that we've ever thought of (or had to buy, or wanted to buy) and put it on this list. You can use this template to create your own custom budget. (One of the greatest things about budgets is that they let you save up for the things you want as well as the things you need.) You can start with zero (we did) and everything will be paid off - guarenteed. We are saving for the things we want, we are saving for things we will need in the future (like a new roof and new appliances) and the budget even found us extra money that we are now investing for our retirement!
A little work in the beginning, some maintaining of the budget during the year, and a budget will create opportunities for you and set you free! You no longer have to worry if eating out will put you "over" this month... with a budget, you can see exactly how much you have to spend at your favorite restaurant. And, if there's not enough in the budget this month, you can edit your budget to reallocate money from another area to set aside more for eating out next month! (Or, you could skip eating out one week to save up for a nicer meal with double your allocation next week!)
Budgets = Power.
Our budget template (encoding into web format... processing...)
On a separate Note:
$3000 invested @ 5% would yield $150 in dividends/year - enough to pay for this website every year - forever…
(or 10 domains renewals every year - forever!)
(This is not Legal/Financial advice, just an option that is working fo rus... Rus? Who's Russ? And why is budgeting also working for him?)
Look at that... I guess I need typing lessons... (Hunny, add a line for typing lessons to the budget... $4/Every 2 Weeks should be a good starting point and we'll edit that up or down when we find out how much it's actually going to cost. Thanks!)
You could pad our budget with the extra you find in your budget... or you could invest that into your children's or grandchildren's future, or you could just spend it selfishly on Pogs, Pez, deoderant, or shoes... wait, those last two should already be on your budget, especially the former. So, before you spend your extra on a new, flame-less, cigarette lighter (as I did - because I thought it was cool - though I didn't even smoke),
think about Partnering with us!
Robert Kiyosaki is the author of RICH DAD POOR DAD (an excellent book premise) that states you don't need to be a millionaire to survive into old age - you just need enough money coming in every month to pay all your bills, and you can live all the rest of your days not working (or working because you want to, not because you have to). Suze Orman's info is also good to look into. (And paying off your house might not make you as much in the long-run as only paying the minimum payment and then just investing the rest in the stock market - but it depends on your situation.)
Being a millionaire (as many well-meaning financial advisors advocate), is not my definition of “success”... because if a million is all you have, then, eventually, that money will dwindle to nothing as you spend it - and you will be right back where you started - living a life (whether you realize it or not) of ever-increasing stress (directly proportionate to how much money you have left...) That is an ever-increasing stressful life. That sounds like bondage to me - not freedom - not success.
However, if your expenses every month are $3000, but you have $3000 of income coming in from all your various passive income-producing sources, well, then you can quit your job and still live free of financial fear and stress... forever!
Think about it…
Playing the Cashflow game has taught me so much
about generating passive income... (and it's still teaching me).
M1 Finance is a free, online, fractional-share investment app with no manditory, minimum, monthly investments - ever.
(So you don't have to always need to try and scrape together an extra $25/ or $100/month like other investment opportunities make you do.
We could never afford that much in a month - and this kept us from making compounding passive income from investing for a long time.)
Click on this affiliate link to find out more, sign up, and even get a free upgrade to their paid version!
It was another tool for learning about investing for our retirement (and our children's future)!
(This may be another way The Father is providing for us - setting us free - giving us that abundant life He was talking about! ~Mark 10:30.)