Financial help for all!

If you have gone through my last post, you would have started to think about making a budget for your household expenses. In this article I will go through the process of making one on Microsoft excel.I would assume that you know the basic Microsoft excel and will only provide summary of which categories to use. First we will think about the fixed expenses. The categories will be:

1. Mortgage / Rent

2. Insurances (Life insurance, Car Insurance etc.)

3. Cable TV subscription

4. Phone / Internet Bill

5. Car loan or any other loan payments.

Make this list of categories and on the right side right down the actual amount you want to put next to each of them in your budget. These are only few activities for which the bills are pretty much same from month to month. If you have some other expenses which are fixed go ahead and add them.Next will be variable expenses. Following are the few expenses which can be listed under variable expenses:

1. Grocery

2. Dining

3. Electricity / Gas

4. Car Gas

5. Clothes / Accessories

6. Miscellaneous

7. Fun activities

This are only few expenses which would change from month to month. If you have additional expenses put them down. Also write down the figure you think you spend for each of them on the right hand side.If you think you want to skip making sheet in excel; there are two options, use online tools or email me and I will provide you with the excel sheet for your budget (No fees for that). If you want to use online tools then www.mint.com is a pretty good website and is well known. The website was listed in Kiplinger’s website and is very user friendly.

All in all, which ever way you do, just prepare a good budget for your household. Creating good budget is a very important first step.

I know that many of you are getting curious as to where this blog will go in coming weeks and months. I will discuss in detail different forms of investing including stock investing as well as buying bank CD’s. I will also discuss how to calculate your household inflation rate and how to control it. I will also help you to save money for education and retirement. There is a lot to cover, but I will go through each topic in a detailed manner to make sure that every aspect of financial planning is completely covered.

Let me know if you are looking for information on any particular topic. 

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