Organise your Finances

Organise Your Finances

Hi again, Lyn here. It's great to be back on the Organise Happy Blog.

This month, I've been tasked with writing about a topic that strikes fear into most people's hearts.......

FINANCES.......there.......I've said it!

No matter how much you have, or don't have, it's never enough. The more you have, the more you spend (or is it just me?)

Interesting story (at least I think it is....)

I used to have a horse. Expensive hobby by the way..... Anyway, every month we paid for livery, feed, hay, bedding, farrier, insurance and so the list goes on. You'd expect that, when you're no longer paying out for those things, that you'd have spare money. Well, what we found was that we didn't! In reality, if you have it, you spend it.

So, we had a bit of a shock.

Something had to change. Enter my planner......did I mention that I LOVE my filofax????

Personal Budget

I developed a system.

1. Firstly I went through our direct debits and standing orders to see what was actually leaving our account to make sure that I knew what we were paying for.

2. Then I created a spreadsheet. Now I chose to do it on the computer but it would be just as effective on paper.

3. I had rows for all income and a sub-total. Then I had rows for all expenditure and a sub-total. I then entered a formula to subtract expenses from income. What was left was our spending money for the month.

The spending money had to pay for food and essentials first so I actually created a budget for this aspect of our spending by recording how much was spent each month and then calculating the average. This was then included in the spreadsheet as an expenditure.

Within my filofax I put a finance section which comprised of a plastic pocket. All receipts for the month go into that plastic pocket so that I can track our spending. Now, we have a secret weapon - our cashback card. Onto this card I place our spending budget each month. Once the money is gone, it's gone. This makes it much easier for us to budget.

Business Finance

I'm self employed so I have to complete a tax return each year. This means that I pot

entially have to pay a tax bill and definitely have to pay the accountant (he gets upset if I don't...)

In order to cope with this I've set up a separate account and called it......wait for it..... Tax Account - original lol.

Each time money comes into our business account, 20% (at least) is transferred into this account so that at the end of the financial year I have the money to pay the bill. This is vital as we have been in the position of having to find the money for the tax man - not a position that I want to be in again. It is far too easy to spend the money as it appears and think to yourself that it doesn't matter, you've got plenty of time to sort it. Believe me, the time soon goes by - much better to be ahead of yourself. What we've found is that we usually have more than we actually need in the account which means we can then treat ourselves once the bills are paid.

So, with a little bit of planning and organisation, there is no need to afraid of your finances.

What method do you have for keeping track of your spending?

Until next time,

Lyn