If you have a mortgage, you are no doubt watching the rising interest rates and petrol prices with your own kind of special interest. As circumstances change with income, expense and cash flow fluctuations and it is important to budget accordingly so if (when) interest rates do increase we can make little adjustments. More particularly we know when we need to make significant adjustments. eg. sell your car with a V8 engine!
If budgeting is new to you, I’ve come across a great website with practical tools to assist with your personal finances. It is www.secretbudget.net. The budgeting spreadsheet would have saved me a lot of time in preparing mine!
Budgeting is equally important in managing our businesses as it is in our personal finances. If you have Microsoft Office Small Business, it comes with some handy templates to assist with budgeting and forecasting.
What tools have you used for budgeting and cash flow forecasting?
Here’s to volunteer treasurers
I learned to budget years ago and am so glad I did. I use spreadsheets but I designed mine myself. I read a book on budgeting (before the Internet was available!) and it showed some examples. I used that and altered it to my needs… and still use that basic template today.
I found a little gem of a website for free budgeting online and it’s anonymous too. It’s called Out Of The Dark (OOTD).
It literally transformed me financially.
Happy budgeting
You’re so right Donna-Marie, it doesn’t need to be complicated to be helpful when keeping a budget.
Thanks Edoma, having a budget and sticking to it can transform us financially. It is often the sticking to it that is the hardest I’ve found.