How to keep a check on your spending?

Financial Planning | admin | September 8, 2011 at 9:03 am

Today's world is more colourful with gadgets, cars, fashionable clothing lines, restaurants, and holiday packages. To supplement potential spenders, banks are aggressively marketing credit cards and personal loans, and also with rise in salaries, the buying power of the youth is increasing. If one doesn't make a conscious effort towards controlled spending, he might fall prey to a debt trap.

Here are some tips to help you manage your money:

House keeping : Create the physical space in your home or office for storing all your bills, bank statements, credit card statements and other financial papers related to spending in an easy-to-access manner. Buy folders to help you easily locate, work on and clear bills and papers as a matter of routine.

Major expenses : An easy way to track your money is to write down your expenses. This is not as tedious as it sounds. Simply buy a pocket diary or a notepad, and carry it along with you. This will ensure that it doesn't get lost, and you will have it at hand whenever you need to use it. If you happen to spend on lots of small things, you might find it terrible fishing out the diary every time you take your wallet out. Try this alternative: jot down how much cash you have in the wallet when you begin the day. And check how much you are left with at the end of the day and account for most of the difference, if not all of it.

Planning : Review your bank and credit card statements, bills, and other outflows to get a clear idea of your monthly expenses, and spending patterns. If you are routinely running over-due on your credit cards, resolve to bring it under control within a realistic timeframe. Take the time to allocate funds for essentials, monthly spending and other contingencies and then plan to set aside funds for other expenses like vacations, new equipment etc.

Source: Economic Times