What is budget and who prepare it?

Answer 1

A budget is a figure of money with the purpose of spending or saving, determined by regular expenses and your source of income. Creating a budget for yourself can be an effective way of saving money or pinpointing the areas in which you would like to make changes to regarding your spending habit.

Creating a budget can be very easy using standard spreadsheet formulae, although in serious financial difficulty of inexperience, it is highly recommended you see someone like a financial adviser or your local bank branch, as they are the people who are most knowledgeable and experienced in this area.

A simple savings budget can be created by doing the following in a spreadsheet:

1 - Make a list of all the regular payments that have to be made, which usually include weekly, monthly and quarterly, although you may like to add other intervals for other costs.

2 - Group these by interval type, and in the cell next to them type the amount of money required to pay them.

3 - How often do you get paid? (Don't worry, that wasn't a direct question! Remember to keep your details entirely confidential unless sharing with a trusted family member or financial adviser). Turn this into a figure of the above intervals mentioned (weekly, monthly).

4 - Create a table with twelve columns, one for each month of the year.

5 - Calculate how much will be paid each month, by multiplying the weekly expenses by four or five (depending on whichever month you're in), and leave the monthly expenses as they are. Put expenses made every few months or so at their correct intervals throughout the year.

6 - By subtracting all the expenses made each month from your salary per month, you get a savings figure, which effectively you can use as your budget. By not spending more than this on other miscellaneous things, you are not cutting into the "essential" money. For example, if you have a salary of $48,000 per year, your monthly salary would be $48,000/12, which is $4,000 per month. You would subtract the necessary expenses from this figure.

7 - It may help to have a visual representation of your budget in the form of a graph.

Once again I reiterate, even though this answer is correct by no means must this advice be relied upon as professional advice, but it will help if you are starting work as a teenager and want to get a small taste of what financial independence is like. If you are in serious trouble, I would advise you, once again, to see a professional specialist in this area.

Happy Saving!