Yay! Payday! That one day every 2 weeks that we get happy seeing that direct deposit in our bank account, but so many people complain afterwards that they don’t have a lot money left to enjoy life once they’re done paying their expenses. What can you do to prevent this from happening?
Budget
I know it’s easy to say budget, but how exactly can you do this? By writing all your expenses down, and I mean all of them.
When it comes to shopping we are so quick to scan our cards and then we’re shocked when we see the balance. By writing everything down we become more mindful about exactly what we’re spending money on. And yes even the coffee that you decide to pick up on your way to work.
Once everything is written down, now we move onto step 2.
The Importance Scale
What is the importance scale? Well it’s a scale form 1-5 that will add a value to everything on your list in level of importance.
So, for example, paying your electricity bill would be valued at 1 because it is very important. But, your new sneakers would be valued at 5.
Once everything is valued on the sheet we move onto step 3.
Cutting Things Out
Everything valued at 5 should be cut back on and a reasonable budget should be set.
Everything that is of “high importance” (aka valued at 1) should be added and that money should be set aside to pay for it.
And so on, once you get the hang of this you are now way more organized in your budget and should have money leftover to be able to save and invest.