The Importance of Creating a Budget in Hard Times

On a day-by-day basis, the cost of living is constantly increasing. This includes increased gasoline, electric, medical and housing costs. However, for the majority of us, our wages are staying the same and not increasing with the changing times.

For the past several years, my husband and I have been struggling financially. One of the reasons is because we have too much debt, which we are slowly whittling down. However, the main root cause is the inability to agree on how much to pay on each expense.

After a recent illness, my husband was out of work on disability. After struggling on one income for a month, I decided that enough was enough. We had to get a budget going and keep on track of it. This is my idea, if we can work together, as a team, on our budget, our financial situation will improve by 100 percent within the next year. Not only will this topic help my husband and me, it will help any on line consumer. It is obvious that consumers are looking to purchase some type of product or service. They would be interested in searching for any topic that shows them how to manage and save money in a more efficient manner.

While, it looks simple on paper, a budget is difficult to do if your spouse is not willing to follow along. This requires teamwork if this is going to work. On line consumers would be interested in finding money management products and services that are geared towards couples.

It is very tempting to buy unnecessary products when you have the money in your checking account. I do not know how many times I saw something that I liked and used money meant for a bill to buy it. I now have two on line money market accounts where I put my household expenses in. I withdraw the money when I make a payment. The compulsive buying is reduced because I do not see that money.

After talking over the budget with my husband, we put together one that will work for us. While this will work for us, it may not work for others. There are many sample budgets on line that consumers can find that will fit their lifestyles. Our is listed below:

Housing 20%
Car 20%
Electric/Oil 10%
Personal Debt 10%
Savings 5%
Cable/Phone/Internet 5%
Groceries 5%
Medical 5%
Clothing 5%
Gas 5%
Spending 5%
Entertainment 5%

The final rule of thumb is the budget must be flexible. For example, as shown above, I allow 5% of my budget for clothing. I do not buy clothes every week. I used that money and paid of my Fashion Bug credit card. Not only did I stay within my budget, I also reduced my debt.