Budget Planner Template
Congratulations on setting your financial goals! To reach them, all you have to do is budget, save and invest. Sounds easy, right? Well it is and it isn’t depending on whether or not you’re using the right tools. Our Qualified Financial Advisers at MyFuture have some tricks up our sleeves to make it that much easier.
Humans are creatures of habit and routines help us to provide structure and organisation within our daily lives. Whether you’re someone who struggles to squirrel away your hard earned income, choosing instead to enjoy it in the moment or maybe you just want to up your savings game. Our budget planner template will help you to reach your financial goals.
Once you transition from aimless spending to routine budgeting, you’ll wonder how you ever managed without a budget and be grateful for the money saved in the process. Revel in watching your savings soar!
Track Monthly Spending
If you aren’t tracking your expenses, you don’t know where your money is really going. Even before you’ve made a budget, it’s important to keep track of your usual spending so you have a basis for budgeted amounts. This will help you avoid creating unrealistic budgets or making unfounded assumptions.
It’s important to hold yourself accountable when it comes to tracking a budget. MyFuture can help you implement strategies and methods to be disciplined with budgeting and spending, but the responsibility falls to you to make sure they get implemented. Fortunately, that means you are in control of your finances and make the decisions that support your goals!
Creating A Budget
To track your monthly spending, it’s important to follow a budget. You may also be tracking your spending to create a budget. Either way, these two tools go hand in hand. Your budget gives you permission to spend, but also acts as a guide to ensure your money goes where you want it to.
Input your income
– Don’t forget any side hustles – this is the money you have to work with this month. If your income is irregular, list the lowest amount you received in the last 6 months as a place to work from.
List your expenses
– You can create categories for this step and how detailed you go depends on you. We recommend inputting as much detail as possible, but a good way to start is with the following:
- Four walls (food, utility, rent/mortgage and transport)
- Other essentials (insurance, debt, childcare, etc.)
- Extras (entertainment, restaurants, etc.)
- Savings
Subtract your expenses from your income
– If your balance is above zero, then you can afford to put a little more money towards your financial goals. If it’s below zero you will have to adjust your budget to get it to balance out. Figure out where you can reasonably make cuts.
Now that you’ve set up your budget, you need to keep track of it to make it work. That can be a challenge, but that’s where technology and tools come in handy.
Get Ahead With Quality Financial Advice
Our Qualified Financial Advisers can help you achieve your wealth creation and savings goals with a tailored financial plan and proven financial expertise.
Track Your Income
When you receive your regular pay cheque, add it to the tracking spreadsheet. Don’t forget any passive income. If you have an irregular income, remember to budget using your lowest income in the most recent half year.
By keeping track of income and expenses, you’ll quickly identify any budget categories that are lacking or excess funds that you can reallocate. Just keep an eye on these from month to month as your needs vary.
Track Your Expenses
Every time you spend on something, remember to track it against the relevant category. Whether it’s on a credit card, cash, debit card, mobile payment, or even cash, make sure your spending is accounted for in your budget. This will help you keep track of how much you have left for the month and will slow you down if you’re overspending.
The point of creating a budget and tracking your expenses is to get an accurate idea of your spending, and it won’t be accurate if it’s not complete.
Make Tracking Part Of Your Routine
You might make a habit of tracking your spending at the end of each week, each day, or even hour to hour. The important thing is that you do it. If you’re in a relationship, get your partner involved. This can be a helpful contributor to open and honest communication.
At MyFuture, we want you to excel at budgeting and tracking your expenses so you can work towards your life’s goals; take advantage of this helpful budget planner template to get started.If you want to take your finances to the next level, reach out to us for your FREE no obligation Discovery Session today. We’ll get you on track to a robust financial plan to meet your financial goals.
What is our 6-Step Financial Advice Process?
The 6-step financial advice process is the international benchmark for financial planning. This holistic approach is proven to increase the likelihood of you achieving your financial goals.
Discovery Session
This is our opportunity to get to know you better, understand your financial goals (short, medium and long-term), and what resources you have to achieve those goals.
Research & Recommendations
During these steps, we do the research, run the numbers, document and present our recommendations to you. This can be a comprehensive financial plan focused on long-term wealth creation and/or a statement of advice focused on your more immediate financial needs. We will need to verify the information you provided during the Discovery Session by requesting supporting documents such as loan and savings account balances, payslips, etc. This ensures we are using highly accurate information when developing our recommendations.
Implementation
This step is all about implementing the recommendations. We don’t just provide the recommendation; we take responsibility for helping you implement it. This could involve helping you to complete application forms, working with a broker to restructure your lending, or finding you suitable investments. We understand you’re busy, so our goal is to make your financial world as easy as possible by doing as much as we can in-house for you. However, ultimately, we never have access to your money and cannot sign anything on your behalf, so you need to be an active, willing, and ideally enthusiastic participant in this process.
Ongoing Service & Reviews
This is where the real fun begins—managing and tracking your long-term financial success. We have periodic reviews to ensure your strategy is still appropriate if your goals or circumstances have changed. We adjust when necessary and provide annual snapshots so you can see your progress over time. Most importantly, you have your very own trusted Personal Financial Adviser available anytime to help with the little or big stuff. Worried about making next month’s mortgage repayments? Call us. Your parents gave you an early inheritance? Call us. Broke up with your partner and split all your assets? Call us! We’re here for you every step of the way to ensure that whatever life throws at you, you stay on track with your long-term financial goals.
Frequently Asked Questions