Highlight: Keeping Expenses in Order and Up to Date
This has been one heck of a rocky road trip. We started with discussions on federal grants along with the criteria for each. Of the grants currently available, Pell is considered the most popular.
After grants, we talked about scholarships and loans. Scholarships are a preferred source when it comes to outsourcing funds for schools where as loans should only be considered when all other resources are tapped out. If loans are a must, then head the route of federal sponsored loans.
All that talk about getting funds for school was starting to numb brain cells, so we branched out into new ventures and placed some focus on employment. Whether for yourself or someone else, working provided a steady source of income that assisted in offsetting expenses that were leftover. Then attention went toward highlighting interesting scholarships that take place throughout the year.
After a while, posts kind of settled on generating income through alternative means such as freelancing, contests and micro tasks.
Getting Things in Order
Alrighty then. There's income (Revenue) coming from your funding sources but there is also money going out (Expenses) to either buy or pay for stuff. Could be a weekly or monthly thing, but those numbers are important.
Keeping your revenue and expenses in order is imperative for maintaining ones sanity when it comes time to balance things out to make sure everything is in place. While examining the numbers, document - if you haven't done this already - what is going out throughout the month along with the amount.
After you've taken stock of everything, document your findings in a journal for future reference; just in case something unplanned surfaces within the constants. Setting a budget could assist in regulating inconsistent variables of expenses or at least put them on track for better handling.
Some may cringe at the thought of setting a budget, but its there for a reason. For me, it assists in ensuring that no one gets left out of the bill pay fun along with who can wait till next payday.
Set It But DON'T Forget It
Modify? Yes. Forget? No.
Its okay to set a budget but its not okay to forget about it. Another way to approach budget setting is to set a funds cap. Kind of thought it up on the fly as a means to better managing my expenses.
Inspiration? Memories of how shocked I was to discover that caps were placed on my school funding sources. At least some good came from it...
This is how the funding cap works:
The 200 Cap
A paycheck comes twice a month. Back when I first started this budget thing, my expenses were pretty simple: Phone Bill, Insurance, Prepaid Card and Savings. The phone bill includes both me and mom's phone while the prepaid card is basically getting reloaded.
Putting something in Savings was imperative since there were always emergencies surfacing throughout the month. Depending on what's going on, Cash Withdrawals will get added from time to time.
The second round is pretty much doing the same thing but with different items and priorities. As always, I continue to add funds to my prepaid card and my savings. The Water and Major bill have been added as well.
The water bill is always below 80 but I like to round up when it comes to bills of this nature; I'm responsible for the water. With this particular cap, I would either be under or right at the 200 mark.
The 250 Cap
250 became the new cap just recently; by recently I mean May. Though 200 was doable, there were a couple of times where the budget was close to breaching; on multiple occasions. Of course the introduction of the Doctor Bill didn't help either.
What did help was the reduction of the phone bill. Its down to one phone plus the price of that one phone dropped by $4. Spending up to the max isn't ideal because there's no wiggle room but there are times when its not easily avoidable.
I'm now placing cash withdrawals as part of the budget because it keeps the bank card from being used too much. Despite having everything laid out in advance, modifications do take place to accommodate for forgotten expenses that I'm later reminded of and have to tend to immediately.
The concept is simple but be it as it may, not everything goes as plan. Thus, changes are made to keep things up to date. Regardless of how you go about your budget, there are variety of programs one can use to record expenses.
Recap
That was a lot of information thrown into the pot so let's review.
After grants, we talked about scholarships and loans. Scholarships are a preferred source when it comes to outsourcing funds for schools where as loans should only be considered when all other resources are tapped out. If loans are a must, then head the route of federal sponsored loans.
All that talk about getting funds for school was starting to numb brain cells, so we branched out into new ventures and placed some focus on employment. Whether for yourself or someone else, working provided a steady source of income that assisted in offsetting expenses that were leftover. Then attention went toward highlighting interesting scholarships that take place throughout the year.
After a while, posts kind of settled on generating income through alternative means such as freelancing, contests and micro tasks.
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| Image courtesy of Imagine632 of VectorStock. |
Getting Things in Order
Alrighty then. There's income (Revenue) coming from your funding sources but there is also money going out (Expenses) to either buy or pay for stuff. Could be a weekly or monthly thing, but those numbers are important.
Keeping your revenue and expenses in order is imperative for maintaining ones sanity when it comes time to balance things out to make sure everything is in place. While examining the numbers, document - if you haven't done this already - what is going out throughout the month along with the amount.
After you've taken stock of everything, document your findings in a journal for future reference; just in case something unplanned surfaces within the constants. Setting a budget could assist in regulating inconsistent variables of expenses or at least put them on track for better handling.
Some may cringe at the thought of setting a budget, but its there for a reason. For me, it assists in ensuring that no one gets left out of the bill pay fun along with who can wait till next payday.
Set It But DON'T Forget It
Modify? Yes. Forget? No.
Its okay to set a budget but its not okay to forget about it. Another way to approach budget setting is to set a funds cap. Kind of thought it up on the fly as a means to better managing my expenses.
Inspiration? Memories of how shocked I was to discover that caps were placed on my school funding sources. At least some good came from it...
This is how the funding cap works:
- Set a max amount of funds you can put toward expenses.
- Disperse the funds among your expenses for the specified time frame.
The 200 Cap
A paycheck comes twice a month. Back when I first started this budget thing, my expenses were pretty simple: Phone Bill, Insurance, Prepaid Card and Savings. The phone bill includes both me and mom's phone while the prepaid card is basically getting reloaded.
Putting something in Savings was imperative since there were always emergencies surfacing throughout the month. Depending on what's going on, Cash Withdrawals will get added from time to time.
The water bill is always below 80 but I like to round up when it comes to bills of this nature; I'm responsible for the water. With this particular cap, I would either be under or right at the 200 mark.
250 became the new cap just recently; by recently I mean May. Though 200 was doable, there were a couple of times where the budget was close to breaching; on multiple occasions. Of course the introduction of the Doctor Bill didn't help either.
What did help was the reduction of the phone bill. Its down to one phone plus the price of that one phone dropped by $4. Spending up to the max isn't ideal because there's no wiggle room but there are times when its not easily avoidable.
The concept is simple but be it as it may, not everything goes as plan. Thus, changes are made to keep things up to date. Regardless of how you go about your budget, there are variety of programs one can use to record expenses.
Recap
That was a lot of information thrown into the pot so let's review.
- Its imperative to keep track of revenue and expenses as a means of staying ahead of the game.
- Budgets/spending caps create safety nets to ensure money is available after expenses.
- Try to keep the max budget below your max income; 50/50 should suffice.
- Balance expenses so that you're not paying a whole bunch at once.
- Adjust/Modify budget to accommodate shifts and extra expenses.
