Starting A Spending Plan

"Debt is the worst poverty" --Thomas Fuller

"Credit buying is much like being drunk. The buzz happens immediately, and it gives you a lift. The hangover come the day after." --Dr Joyce Brothers


Create a budget. If you don't like that word then call it a spending plan or savings plan. No matter what you call it, it still works the same way and you follow the same steps. I'm still going to call it a budget.

Now, it won't matter whether we are living in more financially secure times or in a Recession or even a Depression, keep a budget. You need to have a budget to know, how much money you are making, how much you are spending and hopefully, how much you are saving or investing. Without a budget you can't make a plan to build wealth, because you wont know how much you have to put toward savings.

Also, forbid you should find yourself without a job. With a budget you know exactly what adjustments you need to make and where to not find yourself in financial trouble. Maybe you didn't get fired, but your hours were cut, with a budget you can make adjustments to still be able to pay the bills and wait until things get better.

Without a budget, you just can't do these things.

Not to take you down from a hopeful moment, but here is another very good reason to have a budget, you never know what tomorrow will bring. If history has anything to teach it is this, when times get tough, as they are right now in this Recession, layoffs occur. Earlier on I listed a number of companies that had laid off thousands of people, already, and as I am finishing this book, there are thousands more. Things are only getting worse, not better in the near future.

This is why you need to get out of debt as quickly as you can. You need to start today, not tomorrow, as tomorrow may never come because you keep putting it off and then you too may be without a income. Remember, the debt you are paying on every month, its making someone else rich, not you. By sending your money to credit card companies you are not able to save anything for yourself, or your family, and saving money it only way to get ahead.

The goal of your budget it find a ways to save more money than you spend. When you have a budget worked out, you can learn to customize it, find flexibility in your spending so you can always maximize the amount of money you are able to put aside toward savings. With the savings you will be able to take some nice vacations, put it toward your children's education or even your own, and of course, retirement. By learning to look at your budget and see where you were not able to resist temptation, spending money on spur of the moment items, you can learn to do away with them and have more money for yourself.

The time spent keeping a budget will be offset by the return on your investments and savings.