Tame your money. How?

Take budgeting.

It is as simple as that. But many people fail to realize how important budgeting is.

In the Philippine setting, budgeting is taken into great consideration by many people. However, there are also many who want to spend the things they want and don’t stock anything left. The result: little money on the bank account. No savings made. And the worst is debt-rising.

Yep, I say debt-rising because as the days and months go by with the principal remaining unpaid, the higher the amount is the total debt due to interest accruing from nonpayment. And the probable end result is that the interest amount is higher compared to the principal.

Well, I don’t want you to bore yourself by dictating on what you do for your money, especially those on credit. But really, it is important that you have to do what you need to do for your money. And this starts with budgeting.

Simple steps from what I’ve known about taking budgeting are these:

Have the willpower.

Setting goals for your money may be easy to some. To others, saying, “I’m taking budgeting seriously” is easy, but somehow doing it is not. Take willpower. Program your mind to spend wisely and getting easy on spending money.

Get on a progress.

Take a list on things to buy and compare the expenses to the amount you earn. It is about accounting and yes you need to do it. Why? Listing things may be a childish thing to do. But actually it is not because it helps you remind things for you to be responsible on what you spend.

Assign every penny, dollar or peso.

Whenever you assign an amount to the needed expenses, don’t fail to account the emergency fund you need to set aside for contingencies. 10% of what you earn is the least amount you can funnel to your emergency fund.

Have an ally.

Your financial advisor (if you have) can be your ally but it requires you pay him fees or avail some insurance products. But actually, listening to the advice of a credible financial advisor is worth it. It is like taking a pill. You really have to do it because you have to and you need to especially if you really want an advice. Somehow, a financial advisor can help you with some graphs and other tools you may want to use for budgeting.

The good news is that you don’t have to invest much. A spouse or a partner is another person that you can recruit as an ally in budgeting, in my case, my wife. It is important to have someone pinch you from time to time to remind you of your mistakes and your goals.

Budgeting is a subject that many accounting and business students have encountered. Even non-accounting students may have taken a curriculum about this somehow on their college days.

However, for those who are still new to budgeting, doing this may not be fun but it is a worth financial activity to take in and get used to.

Thanks for reading.


Oh wait, did you know that today is World Book Day?

In light of this interesting event and with regards to our write up above, below are top 5 books that you can read either online or offline about budgeting and money management. Don't worry, there are no affiliate links included on those links below.

• Personal Finance for Dummies by Eric Tyson
• Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry by Helaine Olen
• The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
• The Financial Diet by Chelsea Fagan
• Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck by David Skerry

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