The home economy is particularly interested in those who have just escaped from the care of their parents and gone for free bread. And if father and mother took care of this before, now the young man has to do it. Here is the management of personal finances and will be considered in the framework of this article.
general information
The home economy implies the solution of arising economic and personal issues and problems due to available resources. The primary are the physiological needs of a person - water, food and sleep. After that, it is necessary to solve the issue of comfort - what to wear so as not to freeze, and where to live. This is the minimum basis that must be solved in order to exist peacefully. Of course, you can raise more questions about the rest, and about self-realization, self-development and many more different things, but for now we will concentrate on food, sleep, water and clothes.
So that the body was strong, you need proper and high-quality nutrition. Suitable water is also required. All this needs to be supported by financial investments. The home economy almost never has a problem with this, since making money on it is still not problematic. In extreme cases, you can farm and grow food for yourself. But still, we are interested in what directly to buy it. In order to save personal finances, one should be interested in the venues of fairs, where you can buy potatoes, cabbage, corn and other gifts of land grown on the land by the same farmers. In addition, the high concentration of sellers and buying directly from manufacturers contribute to the opportunity to spend less money. Thanks to this, a home budget is saved.
First steps
But how is the home economy optimally organized? Planning, optimization, and saving have a big impact here. We very often like to nod their heads toward American millionaires. It’s only from the attention of most people that the fact that states are formed by hard work and frugality floats away. Most of the first-generation millionaires are people who set aside money for their retirement and became rich only in adulthood. Therefore, before managing personal finances, you need to take the first few steps:
- Form a family budget. You need to familiarize yourself with the basic methods of managing all means, consider the pros, cons and make sure that this process is not tedious and burdensome.
- Particular attention should be paid to income and expenses that fall on the family budget. Moreover, it is very desirable to break them into categories in order to streamline the accounting process.
- It is best to have a detailed idea of where the money is being spent. To do this, you need to document all expenses. Of course, doing this all your life is not necessary, but you can live in this mode for several months to have a general idea. And it is possible that there will come an understanding that too much money goes into some positions.
This is especially true in the first three months of independent life.
Planning, drafting and optimization
So, home accounting now needs to be organized. The family budget, alas, often does not forgive miscalculations, and this must be approached with full responsibility. Initially, it is necessary to analyze the cash flows that a person or a cell of society receives. After that, you need to do planning. Here it is necessary to highlight the short and long term prospects. The first includes the solution of problems that are now and will not go anywhere. So, it is necessary to pay utility bills, food, transportation expenses. All this must be taken into account and must be reflected in the short term of the family budget. This will allow you to build a balanced budget that will satisfy basic needs. But what about the long term? This should include who there is a desire to become. So, if there is a goal to become an entrepreneur with multimillion-dollar incomes, then you need to take care of the basis. In other words, it is necessary to provide that some personal finances should be directed to a certain deposit account in a bank or to a mattress, for subsequent withdrawal at the right time, when a new life will start. In order to evaluate your strengths, you can initially create three types of budgets: optimistic, realistic and pessimistic, and then evaluate what is better at it and act within the framework of the tools used earlier. Although a triple approach can be applied in the future, if you consider that it is necessary and effective.
So what to bet on the assistant plan?
You can save data in a notebook (barn book) or a computer (PDA or smartphone). What to choose? The first option is better to use only in cases where electronics is unavailable for certain reasons. In this case, it is enough to draw three columns: income, expenses, total. The first two are necessary to reflect the operations that were carried out, and the third - to verify the data. Regarding electronics, we can say that it is necessary for more convenient recording of expenses and subsequent work with them (although there’s someone like that). We will not dwell on this in detail, but we will pay attention only to a few of the most useful functions:
- Reporting. Extremely useful and important feature. The computer allows you to quickly process the available data and submit a report in order to successfully analyze it in the future. And based on the information received, you can make successful decisions.
- The presence of several types of accounts. It is very convenient that you can separate the deposit at the bank, the family budget, mutual funds and other working moments.
- Planning. It allows you to make estimated costs and future payments, so you can simulate the situation, which will happen after a certain time.
- Calculation of interest on loans and deposits. What can I say - a very pleasant and motivating little thing.
- Debt control. To accurately reflect financial affairs, you can also record here those who borrowed something. This function will not let you forget who received the money and who gave it to you.
- Data protection. All information located in the program can be protected from prying eyes with a strong password.
Software Help
Many are interested in how to keep a home budget in a notebook. Although an example of such an approach deserves respect, it nevertheless has its drawbacks, and indeed, it is outdated. Although the notebook allows you to make data less whimsical, it’s better to stock up with more ergonomic software. This approach is more convenient and easy to become a habit due to its comfort. We recommend you pay attention to such software:
- "Home Finances."
- "The Jade." Not the most functional, but simple program without any frills.
- "Home Economics". Pleasant software that allows you to conveniently carry out calculations.
- "Family budget".
- "Home Bookkeeping". A multifunctional program with a lot of different settings.
- AceMoney.
- Family An excellent program, one of the best (some quietly assign it No. 1) of those that are presented on the Internet. It is advisable to use later versions, since the former had a fairly large number of software problems.
- MoneyTracker. A multifunctional and convenient program that can be used both for the family budget and for personal finances.
Another one of the program options should be mentioned a program such as Microsoft Office as Excel (or similar). The advantage of this approach is that information about all expenses and the like can be viewed both on stationary devices such as personal computers and laptops, and on mobile tablets and smartphones.
How to save?
Well, the important point is cost optimization. In our reality, up to 2/5 of all funds are spent on utilities. It should also be noted that tariffs are growing annually by 15-20 percent, which cannot but sadness. Therefore, you need to think about how to minimize the size of payments. If we talk about the winter period, the installation of meters and the warming of apartments / houses are of great help here. In addition, you can monitor your health so that you do not have to subsequently spend significant funds on medications. If desired and possible, you can notice a car / public transport on a bicycle. Thus, it will be both savings and health benefits.
Separately, there is marketing in the home economy. It aims to identify needs and their satisfaction. Therefore, before going to the stores, they recommend compiling lists of necessary products so as not to spray their financial resources on something unnecessary. It’s no secret that professional marketers know how to dust their brains very well, and if you go to the store for bread, you go out with a whole bunch of packages. Therefore, it is important to keep your head clear and not give in to manipulation. The system of priorities helps very well in this. If there is not enough will for this, then determine the goals and objectives of the home economy and always keep them within the “walking” accessibility. This will facilitate the process of self-discipline.
About a budget man, put in a word
Initially, it is necessary to determine who will monitor the money and its spending. It is also necessary to discuss the features of the process of their distribution. It is important to note the type of budget: joint or separate. To achieve mutual understanding and to avoid conflicts, it is necessary to learn how to properly handle money. For this, the partner responsible for the budget must understand the importance of planning and be able to make informed decisions. To maximize the effectiveness of the measures taken, care should be taken to draw a clear income structure with expenses. This is necessary in order to understand how well the money is spent. Keeping a family budget where only one person is easy. But if there are two of them, this requires a certain skill. Initially, it will be quite difficult to calculate money, but within a month or two, after the result is envied, it will not seem so burdensome.
Create your budget
So, you need to evaluate how much you can count on. It is best if you rely on data from last year during such an operation. Thanks to this, it will be possible to have an approximate basis for spending. Indeed, if the budget is drawn up for the first time and there is no true data, it may turn out that a lot has not been taken into account, and the expenses have been underestimated. True, it is necessary to make adjustments to reflect inflation. Since there is no faith in official data published by the government, the percentage of the increase in utility bills can be taken as a reference point. Such elements of the home economy will make it possible to adopt a family budget close to reality. Also, it is not necessary to choose an absolutely optimal development path; care should be taken to ensure that various sudden expenses are foreseen. This may be the need for treatment, and pocket money for children, or the banal desire for sweets, when everything is bad and you need to at least somehow console yourself. True, more than five percent should not be allocated to this business. Some of this can be used a little differently. Consider a situation where parents give out pocket money to children. You can not limit it, but go the other way. Here, for example, is one small option. Once a month, children are given a certain amount, which they can spend at their discretion. Let's say three hundred rubles, although you can stop a thousand. This is not regulated in any way, but at the same time there will be no support anymore. That is, if the child spends all the money at once - well, he himself decided so, no sweets, toys and other things until the end of the month. In the future, he will already think about what to do with the funds allocated to him, and learn to handle money carefully, build his budget.
Keeping records of income / expenses
Assume that electronics is used for this purpose. How to calculate your home budget in this case? An important advantage of the software is that there is an extensive classification of expenses. So, you can write down how much went for transport, for food, leisure and entertainment, medicine, a communal apartment. Depending on the functionality, even a record of what and how much was purchased, for example, three ice creams of twenty-five rubles, may be available. Thus, you can very carefully check your spending and make an appropriate decision that will help to conduct activities more economically.
Consider a small example. It is possible to take a sandwich from home, which costs twenty rubles, or to buy a bun for work for fifty. The difference seems to be small, but for a month - five hundred rubles. Too much, but not too much? Then for a year - six thousand rubles. Almost the minimum monthly pension. And this is in one year! On one bun! Amazing right? And if you carefully and scrupulously calculate your expenses, then you will understand that by slightly changing your mode of life, you can save significantly. One more example? Let's imagine a small town for 70 thousand people. The cost of a taxi is 10 rubles. 20 is spent per day. Suppose a person goes to work only 20 days a month. Total - 400. For a year - 4800. You can buy a good, high-quality and reliable sports bike that will pay off in 3-5 years. On it, having acquired the proper dexterity, you can easily accelerate to 100 kilometers per hour (although we do not forget about the limit of 60 km / h) and get to the place of work faster than on the minibus. And here the health benefits that the cyclist will receive are not yet taken into account. And is it worth saying that traffic jams are not terrible for them?
Conclusion
In order to have an idea of the areas of your own life that can be improved, you must first draw up a thorough and detailed analysis of the expenses. Based on these data, you can make the most possible plan in terms of accuracy. And then financial management will be easier. After all, it is one thing to hear from someone that one can provide for one's life. It is completely different to consider that it is possible to save and invest, for example, in eight years, so much money that in the future it will be possible to live without hunching somewhere in an unloved job, but doing what you like. And to achieve such a beautiful, exciting and necessary goal, you will have to work hard. You may have to combine several places of work, but believe me, it's worth it. After all, what could be more beautiful than the opportunity to decide for yourself what free time will be spent on? Where to direct your work? What goals to achieve? To be the master of one’s life is man’s destiny.