How to get My budget under control?

Question

I work for myself and bring in about 1000.00 per week. sometime More & sometimes less. My Bills are about 3200.00 per MO. But I am alway behind. How do I get control of this. I dont have a steady paycheck each week. But there must be a system I can use. I never blow money needlessley.

Answer 1

I am also self employed (for 10 years now), and this is a hard thing to resolve. Here are some things that I (or people I know) do to handle this:

Raise your prices. Many people when they get to your position they raise their prices because they simply can not afford to stay in business with their current income (and it is hard to count on working more than you have been). Often when we raise our prices, we have a couple customers (usually the really time consuming and demanding ones) that say "You are not worth that!" but we also find that the higher prices attract new (and often more professional and serious) customers - so you wind up working less or the same hours for more money. You can also pad your estimates a bit to ensure than any overages get covered.

You could try to build your budget on a yearly basis instead of a monthly basis. I know myself I build a monthly budget of stuff I pay monthly, but then I forget my yearly expenses (like ISP, car registration, Internic, taxes, etc.). Figure our your yearly expenses then divide that by 12. My mother does this and keeps elaborate records of how much of the deposit is allocated to which expense, etc. and that works very well for her. I write it once on a list and do my best to deposit the right amount of money each week, but it is hard with an income that fluctuates (hence my mother's methos - so she can keep track of how much extra she needs to add on a good week to make up for a bad).

Also, utilize a savings account to hold your budget money and only put into the checking account what you need for bills and whatever weekly allowance you give yourself for food etc. That way you can be sure that you will not go over what is actually available. I also recommend budgettingn in an amount for savings (even it if is $25 per week) to that eventually you will have reserves for yourself.

I would urge you, if you have credit cards, to get onto a credit counselling program and stay away from credit cards if you can. With Debit Visas you can do most things our of your checking account. We tried for so long to not do this to protect our credit and our credit was ruined by not being able to manage. Better to have done it immediately (once we had debit visa cards) and save all the extra money. I know people who have done credit counselling and have qualified for a mortgage 3 years after - and it is a lot easier on you to not have to deal with collections and it saves you a bundle.

Another thing to consider is looking at your expenses and bringing them as low as possible. Printers in the mid-west cost like 1/3 of a printer on either coast. Vonage and Comcast offer great phone deals (I just took my $210 per month phone bill - for personal and business with secondary rollover line - to just about $100). Maybe your cell phone provider has a better deal for you - or you might be able to get the interest on your credit cards lowered just by asking.

Residual income is also important for the self empolyed. We need something that can sell itself and make us money when we are sleeping if we want a raise, very often (because there are only so many billable work hours in a day). We've been lucky enough to buy a calendar that we produce each year (for about $3K and we make about $15K) and then we made a few of our own products. We are computer consultants - and now publishers - and my husband is a musician, so we were able to put together some books and software about celtic instruments that are just starting to sell through amazon. Now all we need to do is get our residual income up to what our budget is and then we can finally relax!

Finally, if you are of an open mind, you might also want to check out The Secret (http://www.thesecret.tv) it's a newish prospertiy movie that talk about using the power of thought and intention to succeed. It's powerful and amazing and you can watch it right from the site for just $5. Watch it 8 times and it will change your life.

Peace!

Answer 2

do your "bills" include all your needs and household expenses, even stuff like medicine, food and gas? if not, you need to allot some for that. You say you dont blow money needlessly. you might be able to save by watching for sales and clipping coupons at the store. Usually each store has just a few cheap things every week, times of the year that there are the best sales are usually Nov-Dec and times when people have cookouts (Labor day, memorial day, 4th of July in the USA). You can get chicken for 49 cents a pound and chocolate chips and 8 oz. of cheese and bag of sugar for $1 if you watch sales careful. These are just some examples of the great prices that are out there if you take the time to watch them carefully. Stock up when stuff is cheap. Put about $200 a month away in a seperate account each month and forget about it, pretend you don't have it.

Answer 3

I do the following:

1. Forcefully stash away 30% of my money into deposits and stay away from it whatever comes.
2. I do not spend like a maverick. If I stop by a shop window and gaze at something interesting, I move away. I do this atleast twice. If it was certainly important and very needy for my life I will always go back and buy. This way I found to save 100s of dollars.
3. I never use my credit card. I always use my debit card. If you require a strange reason to have a credit have a very very low spend limit.

Answer 4

I got my budget under control by doing the Dave Ramsey financial peace university. It hasn't been fast but I am now geting ahead. I got the same bills and income.

Answer 5

Let's see...$4,000.00 a month income, $3,200 outgo.

Leaves $800.00 for discretionary expenses. You have a credit debit ratio of 80%. 80% of your income is going out just to manage your debt.

Too much debt. You would not qualify for a car loan.

Reduce expenses by at least $1,200.00 or increase income to $7,400.00 as fast as you can. You are setting yourself up for a Bk filing.

Answer 6

dont spend any money