If it makes you feel better about the process, drop the word "budget" and call it a "spending plan".
E
very organization has a budget. Successful organizations around the world budget their money. And they do it because it works. But although making money and making a budget appear to go hand-in-hand, a report on personal income and outlays by the U.S. Department of Commerce found that for 2006, American households had a negative savings rate of around 1.0%, although it has increased since. Same in the case with Indians. It appears that the overwhelming majority of Indians does not have or correctly use a personal budget. Sticking to a personal budget will increase your financial health Budget and Diet are terminologies that do not have positive connotations. These are activities which people resort to when people have some serious problems. Budget and a diet are both tools. If the tools are used properly, they lead to a desired outcome. Nobody dislikes the word "shovel", even though the use of the shovel requires effort. People use a shovel to dig a hole. They use a diet to develop a healthy body, and they use a budget to develop a fiscally responsible lifestyle.. Instead of viewing the plan as
restrictive, think about the things it allows you to buy. After all, a budget is nothing more than a plan for how you will spend your money. People complain that they can't create a budget because they don't know exactly how much money they will earn in a given week. While it is true that workers earning an hourly wage or working on commission might not get the exact same rupee figure in each paycheck, the amount that you earn has much less to do with the basics of budgeting than the amount you spend. Instead of focusing on whether you earn enough each month, focus on your monthly spending. The question is simple: where does your money go. Regardless of how much you earn or when you earn it, everybody has fixed expenses, like house rent, loans, groceries, education, shopping, entertainment etc. If your expenses don't add up to the amount of your monthly your next step should be to save the receipts for every purchase that you make next month and use them as the basis for creating additional categories or adjusting the numbers in the existing categories. There are certain items which do not March 2013 UNIQUE TIMES 23