MONEY MATTERS

During the process of creating a budget, you will need to be honest with yourself about your needs and your wants.

Access Credit Union implemented a fi nancial literacy program in 2017 called Each One Teach One. The program was created by Vancity Credit Union in 2008 and is an award-winning program that o ers educational workshops on basic fi nancial skills. There is no selling of products or services during the 17 available workshops. Access Credit Union currently has 21 fi nancial literacy trainers who have to date, facilitated 150 workshops to over 2,200 participants.

One of the most requested workshop topics is budgeting. A budget is a detailed list of your

expected income and planned spending over

a certain period of time. A budget will help you understand where you spend your money, protect and prepare you for possible fi nancial di culties and help you reach your fi nancial goals. Essentially, it is a tool to ensure you don’t spend more than you have.

During the process of creating a budget, you will need to be honest with yourself about your needs and your wants. Everyone’s needs and wants are going to be di erent and it can often be di cult to determine what is a need versus what is a want. For example, everyone needs to eat so food is a need right? It is but food may turn into a want if you are purchasing all organic items that you really can’t a ord or eating at

restaurants every night when preparing food at home would be a more economical alternative. Another common example is making co ee at home versus picking it up at a drive through. Buying co ee is a small expense that can add up and can potentially make a big di erence in your budget.

If you’re going to be successful in reaching your goal, you have to make reasonable changes to your spending and to your budget. For instance, if you spend $300 a month eating in restaurants, it’s not reasonable to just decide that you won’t spend that money anymore unless you are committed to always cooking at home. A more realistic goal may be to reduce the amount spent in restaurants by $100 a month and use that towards the goal of a down payment on a house, paying o debt or whatever your goal happens to be. Identifying the di erence between needs and wants empowers you to choose the wants that are most rewarding to you and if you have a budget, you can make spending decisions without feeling guilty when you buy something that is not a need.

You can create your own personalized budget using a zero based budgeting template that can be found on our website www.accesscu.ca under the ‘tools’ tab. A zero based budget means that all your income is accounted for and with this you’ll know exactly where each dollar is to go. You can print out this template or download an excel version and customize it to your needs. Don’t forget to review the helpful hints on this template as you work through the process of creating a budget!

If you are interested in learning more about the workshops please contact: fi nancialliteracy@accesscu.ca.

You can also check out Access Credit Union’s prerecorded workshops on YouTube at: www.youtube.com/AccessCreditUnion.

BUDGETING

Create Your Personalized Budget

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