Why Personal Budgeting Should Be Your New Years Resolution

If you’re struggling with finances, the year 2015 can be a fresh new start for you. How? By embracing personal budgeting.
Personal budgeting makes it easy for you to keep track of your money so that you don’t overspend. Here are some reasons it should be your New Year’s resolution – one that you stick to. Personal budgeting:

• Allows you to keep track of spending

Have you ever run out of money with your next paycheque still days away? Do you have difficulty tracking your income and expenses so that you live within your means?

If so, personal budgeting can help you keep track of your spending, easily. With a budget, you’ll allocate money for certain “must haves,” which are necessary expenses like rent, utilities, car payments, food, and student loan payments. What’s left over is called “discretionary income,” and it’s likely that the overspending is coming through unnecessary purchases from that discretionary income, which brings you up short every month.

• Helps you get and stay out of debt

If you’re always making minimum credit card payments but not much more, you’re spending significantly more money than you would if you simply paid cards off every month, thanks to interest. Getting and staying out of debt is one of the most important things you’ll do for your financial health. When you budget, you can take care of your necessary expenses first, keep a small amount out for fun spending and saving if you wish, and then apply the rest to your debt so that you pay it down. Then, stay out of debt once you’re done.

• Helps you figure out ways to conserve money

This may not be apparent right away, but as the months go on and you learn to budget, you’ll find ways to conserve money and spend less. Then, you can put more away in savings, invest, pay off credit card debt, and simply become comfortable living well within your means so that you never have to scramble to pay for your necessary expenses.

The bonus is that when you conserve money, you can learn to live on less.

• Helps you avoid impulse buys

Have you ever bought something and then regretted it later? One of the biggest culprits in poor money management is the impulse buy. When you budget and keep track of your income versus expenses, you won’t buy on impulse because you’ll know exactly what you’ve got coming in and what you need to pay yet for the month. Instead, you’ll learn to weigh each purchase to decide whether you really want it and can afford it.

• Helps you invest and save extra money

When you get good at personal budgeting, you may discover that you actually find it gratifying to save and invest extra money you have after you pay for needs. The “game” becomes not the chase of the sale for this are that hot item while shopping, but the thrill of investing and saving instead. You watch your investments and savings grow, thanks to the magic of compound interest, and you will wonder what you ever thought was so thrilling about those soon-forgotten purchases that you didn’t even need.

Having difficulty making ends meet while you get your personal budgeting in order? Fast Access Finance can help. To learn more about us or to apply for a loan online, contact Fast Access Finance today. There’s no risk or obligation, and you can usually have money deposited directly into your account within 24 hours.