You don’t have to be good at math to budget
I remember in the early ’80s my family was living in Blackall, every 3 months mum and dad would pack up our family for the 8 hour trek across to Rockhampton to do the grocery shopping. We would visit Jack the Slashers discount grocery store, my parents would walk up and down the isles collecting the groceries we needed, calculator in hand keeping track of the cost of the purchases. You don’t need to be good a math to manage your money, you just need to use the tools available.
Last week I mentioned some of the misconceptions or beliefs that people have which stops them from putting a personal budget in place. A common one I hear is
I’m not good at math so I can’t manage my money
As my story above shows, it is not about being good at math. It is about understanding what you want to achieve and using the correct tools to help you get there. The tools don’t have to be anything fancy, pen and paper will work, a spreadsheet or there are a range of apps for your computer or smartphone.
There are 4 main components to the budget
- Income
- Expenses
- Debts or Liabilities
- Savings
The primary aim of your budget is to control you expenses so that your debts can be repaid and you can start saving for the future. In the next post we will finish discussing the misconceptions around budgeting and continue looking at the components of the budget.
In the meantime if you would like to get a headstart, here is a link to a budget template you can have a look at.