Is My Financial Situation Really That Bad?

By Edwood Woodward

Our lives in the last decade or so have become so fast that it has become very difficult to maintain a record of all the expenses that we incur. People today find it very hard to maintain any kind of savings, and the handful who do manage them do not know what to do with them. Living on this planet is not free at all.

The situation demands from you to know exactly where you stand financially. This way, in case there is an emergency and you require cash, at least you would know where you can generate it from. To start off, you need to realize that you are worth nothing and everything you own is your asset.

You want to know where you stand financially and for this, you have to add up the financial worth of your assets and subtract all your expenses from this number. Your assets constitute anything that you have and can be sold for money; some common examples are your house, your car, your salary and a trust fund.

The second step is to find out your total expenses. Sweets bought from the roadside stall, school fee, electricity and gas bills, shopping, groceries, and basically anything for which money leaves your wallet is an expense.

The ideal scenario would be when you have more assets as compared to the expenses. Now do not be scared if your expenses add up to an obscene amount and your assets are nowhere near it. You probably forgot to add gifts given to you by your parents or friends in the list of assets. It could be the car that you have been driving since you were sixteen along with petrol and other car expenses.

It takes a long while to note all your expenses for the first time and the best way to do it is to maintain financial books and update them regularly. Doing this will help you know how you spend your income and what are the biggest expenses you pay for. Most of the time, people are spending more than they are earning. The gap between the income and expenses in these cases is mostly covered by loans. This is a very dangerous thing to do. Taking a loan means that, instead of saving, you are about to spend something that is not yours and cannot be covered through your income. The only way to fix this kind of situation is to try and reduce your daily expenses, and save money which can be used to pay back the loans. There is a very high chance that you will start cut backs and go a bit overboard, get frustrated by the resulting situation and give up on the whole idea. The best solution in these circumstances is to start budgeting. The plan is to commit yourself to a fixed amount to spend every day, month or year, depending upon the nature of the budget. Monthly budgets are the most effective way to get out of bad financial situations.

At times, in fact most of the time, people spend more than what they earn. This can be due to various reasons, the most common of which is taking loans. Taking loans is the worst thing that you can do to yourself. This means that you are willing to spend more than you earn and spend money that you do not have. When you spend as much as you can, you cannot do any savings. When you are in such a situation, the best thing to do is to cut back on your daily expenses, and start saving, so that you can pay your loans swiftly. When talking about cutting back, if you cut back too much, you may get frustrated and stop cutting back at all. Such aggravating situations call for you to set up budgets. This is a daily, monthly or yearly quota with which you restrict yourself. They are most accurate when you target monthly budgets and follow them thoroughly. Setting budgets helps in prioritizing and recognizing unnecessary expenses. This can help you save enough to invest. Following these steps submissively will make you realize how important money is and how you can best take care of it.

About the Author:

Powered by Blogger