Credit Crunch: A Survivor’s Guide – Budgeting

Budgeting is not scary, it’s not difficulty and it doesn’t take a genius to do it. You don’t need a degree in finance, or 25 year experience as an economist, nor to you need a financial advisor or book-keeper do it for you.

Budgeting is about knowing what your incomings are (wages normally), and your outgoings (mortgage/rent, utilities, telephone, cable, shopping, credit cards, etc).

Start out by printing off your monthly bank statement. If you haven’t got internet banking then sign-up now. The easiest way to have control of your money is to know how much you have and how much is coming out. This is budgeting.

Make a list of your income:

To make it simple and give you an example we’ll say you receive £1000 wages a month and you have no other income.

Now make a list of your direct debits, standing-orders, and any other monthly payments that you can’t get out of, this should not include any spending on shopping or food:

Rent:               £300.00

Electricity:             £100.00

Gas:                £100.00

Water:                         £20.00

Taxes:             £50.00

Insurance:             £10.00

Travel:             £20.00

So you start with £1000

When you’ve paid all of the above you’re left with: £400.00

This is your working budget. Spend more than this and you’re going into debt. Debt is the enemy! You should always try to spend within your budget. Food, clothes, going out, holidays, petrol, everything that is not a regular bill will come out of your working budget.

Check your bank regularly, internet banking and telephone banking are very helpful in making sure you are aware of your spending.

Budgeting is the opposite of dieting, but both work in the same (although opposite) way: there are only two ways to improve your situation, get more money in or spend less money. (Dieting is use more calories up or take less in).

Being aware of your financial situation, however bad it may be, is always helpful. Remember that knowledge is power.

Next time: Bills

Work… It’s shite

I don’t normally let work get to me. I’m a fairly easy going person, and I’ve worked in the same place (although doing slightly different jobs) for almost ten years. I’m an administrator in a large public company, so very unexciting for the most part.

I’ve been fortunate so far. I generally don’t have to do too much work and can get away with doing more important things in my work-time, such as looking at porn, playing on myspace, writing (when I get some occasional peace!), and reading things that I probably shouldn’t be reading at work. I see these as perks of the job that make up for the poor wages.

Apathy is killing my career. In fact, it’s only this year that I’ve begun to think of my job as a career. Before I turned thirty-three it was always a job, just a job, and eventually I’ll get a proper job. With real money. And real work.

But at the beginning of this year something started to change. I got a lot more work to do, not only enough to fill my time (which was pretty well filled with my hobbies anyway), but it spilled over into my time and made me quite stressed. I cut out the hobbies and found I had a little more time to fit in work-related stuff. Then the work continued to pile up.

It’s still continuing, the work is still piling up, due to a merger our department had with another department. Right now I’m doing far too much work and my easy life is over. The thing that makes it worse is that the threat of redundancy has been hanging over us since January and still no one quite knows what’s going on, not even the managers. Which really can’t be good.

The sheer amount of work I have to do is finally getting to me, and I think I’m gonna have a meltdown sometime soon. Last week I made an error which will cost the department money. This week, the week yet to come, we will be running something we shouldn’t be running due to a miscommunication that could be construed as my fault, although strictly speaking it wasn’t.

Also this week I have to fill in a form to say why they should keep me. As if it isn’t obvious!  

Right now I’m thinking unemployment can’t be that bad! I’d get a lot more time to read and to write and watch porn and horror films that I record on cable. Except cable might have to go to save a bit of cash, and new books will be impossible. And I might have to cut down the broadband too, no more myspace, no more porn… What other hobbies are not cost effective?

Work sucks. But what’s the alternative?