Home economics is especially interesting for those who have just escaped from the care of their parents and left for free bread. And if earlier dad and mom took care of this, now a young man has to do it. That is finance and will be discussed within the framework of this article.
general information
The home economy implies the solution of the economic and personal issues and problems that have arisen at the expense of the available resources. The physiological needs of a person are of primary importance - water, food and sleep. After that, it is necessary to resolve the issue of comfort - what to wear so as not to freeze, and where to live. This is the minimum basis that needs to be solved in order to exist peacefully. Of course, you can raise more questions about rest, and about self-realization, self-development and many more different points, but for now let's concentrate on food, sleep, water and clothes.
So, in order for the body to be strong, you need proper and high-quality nutrition. Drinkable water is also required. All this needs to be supported by financial investments. The home economy almost never experiences problems with this, since it is still not problematic to make money on it. In extreme cases, you can go into farming and grow your own food yourself. But still we are interested in what to buy it directly. In order to save personal finances, you should be interested in the places where fairs are held, where you can buy potatoes, cabbage, corn and other gifts of the land grown on the land by the same farmers. In addition, a high concentration of sellers and buying directly from producers contribute to the fact that there is an opportunity to spend less money. This ensures savings in the home budget.
The first steps
But how is the home economy optimally organized? Planning, optimization and savings have a big influence here. We very often like to nod their heads in the direction of American millionaires. But the fact that states are formed by hard work and frugality floats away from the attention of most people. Most first-generation millionaires are people who saved money for their retirement and became rich only in adulthood. Therefore, before you can manage your personal finances, you need to take a few first steps:
- Form the lead You need to familiarize yourself with the main methods of managing all means, consider the pros and cons, and make sure that this process is not tedious and burdensome.
- Particular attention should be paid to income and expenses that fall on the family budget. Moreover, it is very desirable to break them down into categories in order to streamline the accounting process.
- It is best to have a detailed understanding of where the money is being spent. To do this, you need to document all costs. Of course, it is not necessary to do this all your life, but you can live in this mode for several months in order to have a general idea. And it is possible that an understanding will come that too much money is being spent on certain positions.
This is especially true in the first three months of independent life.
Planning, drafting and optimization
So, now home bookkeeping needs to be organized. The family budget, alas, often does not forgive miscalculations, and this must be approached with all responsibility. Initially, it is necessary to analyze the cash flows that a person or a cell of society receives. After that, you need to do planning. Here it is necessary to highlight the short-term and long-term prospects. The first includes the solution of problems that exist now and will not go anywhere. So, you need to pay utility bills, food, transportation costs. All this must be taken into account and must be reflected in the short term of the family budget. This will help you build a balanced budget that meets your basic needs. But what about the long term? This should include what the desire to become is. So, if there is a goal of becoming an entrepreneur with multimillion-dollar income, then you need to take care of the foundation. In other words, it is necessary to provide that some personal finances are sent to a certain deposit account in a bank or to a mattress, for subsequent extraction at the right time, when a new life starts. In order to assess your strengths, you can initially create three types of budgets: optimistic, realistic and pessimistic, and then evaluate what is best, and act within the framework of the previously used tools. Although the triple approach can be used in the future, if you consider that it is necessary and effective.
What to bet on in terms of an assistant?
You can save data in a notebook (granary book) or a computer (PDA or smartphone). What should you choose? It is better to use the first option exclusively in cases where electronics are not available for certain reasons. In this case, it is enough to draw three columns: income, expenses, total. The first two are needed to reflect the transactions that have been carried out, and the third is to reconcile the data. Regarding electronics, we can say that it is necessary for more convenient recording of expenses and subsequent work with them (although there is someone like that). We will not dwell on this in detail, but we will pay attention only to a few of the most useful functions:
- Formation of reports. An extremely useful and important feature. The computer allows you to quickly process the available data and submit a report in order to successfully analyze it in the future. And based on the information received, you can make successful decisions.
- Several types of accounts. It is very convenient that you can allocate a separate bank deposit, family budget, mutual funds and other work moments.
- Planning. Allows you to enter estimated costs and future payments, so you can simulate the situation that will happen after a certain time.
- Calculation of interest on loans and deposits. Needless to say - a very pleasant and motivating thing.
- Debt control. For an accurate reflection of financial affairs, you can also write down those who borrowed something. This function will not allow you to forget who received the money and who gave it to you.
- Data protection. All information located in the program can be protected from prying eyes with a strong password.
Software Help
Many people are interested in how to keep a home budget in a notebook. Although an example of such an approach deserves respect, it still has its drawbacks, and in general, it is morally outdated. Although the notebook allows you to make data less whimsical, it is still better to stock up on more ergonomic software. This approach is both more convenient and will easily become a habit due to its comfort. We recommend paying attention to the following software:
- "Home Finance".
- "Greedyuga". Not the most functional, but simple and without unnecessary frills program.
- "Home economics". Nice software that allows you to conveniently carry out calculations.
- "Family budget".
- "Home bookkeeping". Multifunctional program with a lot of different settings.
- AceMoney.
- Family. An excellent program, one of the best (some quietly assign it number 1) of those that are presented on the Internet. It is advisable to use the later versions, since the former had a fairly large number of software problems.
- MoneyTracker. Multifunctional and convenient program that can be used both for the family budget and for personal finances.
Also, as one of the software options, we should mention such a program as Microsoft Office like Excel (or similar to it). The advantage of this approach is that information about all expenses and the like can be viewed both on stationary devices such as personal computers and laptops, and on mobile tablets and smartphones.
How to save?
Well, the important point is that In our reality, up to 2/5 of all funds are spent on utilities. It should also be noted that tariffs are growing by 15-20 percent annually, which is saddening. Therefore, you need to think about how to minimize the size of payments. If we talk about the winter period, then the installation of meters and the insulation of apartments / houses greatly helps. In addition, you can monitor your health so that you do not have to spend significant funds on medications in the future. If desired and possible, you can see the car / public transport by bike. Thus, there will be both savings and health benefits.
Marketing in the home economy stands alone. It aims to identify needs and meet them. Therefore, before going to stores, it is recommended to draw up lists of necessary products so as not to waste your financial resources on something unnecessary. It's no secret that professional marketers know how to powder their brains very well, and once you go to the store for bread, you come out with a whole heap of bags. Therefore, it is important to keep your head clear and not to be manipulated. The priority system helps very well in this. If there is not enough will to do this, then define the goals and objectives of the home economy and always keep them within walking distance. This will facilitate the self-discipline process.
Let's say a word about the person leading the budget
Initially, it is necessary to determine who will monitor the money and their spending. It is also necessary to discuss the features of the process of their distribution. It is also important to note the type of budget: joint or separate. To achieve mutual understanding and to avoid conflicts, it is necessary to learn how to handle money correctly. To do this, the partner in charge of the budget must understand the importance of planning and be able to make informed decisions. To maximize the effectiveness of the measures taken, care should be taken to draw a clear structure of income and expenses. This is necessary in order to understand how expediently the money is spent. Keeping a budget for a family with only one person is quite easy. But if there are two of them, it already requires a certain skill. Initially, it will be quite difficult to count money, but after a month or two, after the result is envied, it will no longer seem so burdensome.
Create your own budget
So, you need to assess how much you can count on. It is best if you rely on last year's data during such an operation. This will allow you to have an approximate spending base. After all, if the budget is drawn up for the first time and there is no truthful data, then it may turn out that a lot has not been taken into account, and the expenses were underestimated. However, it is necessary to make adjustments for inflation. Since there is no faith in the official data published by the government, the percentage value of the increase in utility bills can be taken as a reference point. Such elements of the home economy will allow the adoption of a family budget close to reality. Also, you do not need to choose the absolutely optimal path of development; care should be taken to ensure that various sudden expenses are provided. This can be the need for treatment, and pocket money for children, and a banal desire for sweets, when everything is bad and you need to somehow console yourself. True, more than five percent should not be allocated to this matter. Some of this can be used in a slightly different way. Consider a situation where parents give their children pocket money. You can not limit it, but go the other way. Here's one small option, for example. Children are given a certain amount once a month, which they can spend at their discretion. Let's say three hundred rubles, although you can stop at a thousand. This is not regulated in any way, but at the same time there will be no more support. That is, if the child spends all the money at once - well, he decided so himself, no sweets, toys and other things until the end of the month. In the future, he will already think about what to do with the funds allocated to him, and learn to handle money with care, build his own budget.
Keeping records of income / expenses
Let's assume that electronics are used for this purpose. How do you calculate your home budget in this case? An important advantage of the software is that there is an extensive classification of spending. So, you can write down how much was spent on transport, food, recreation and entertainment, medicines, communal services. Depending on the functionality, even a record of what and how much was bought, for example, three ice creams at twenty-five rubles, may even be available. Thus, you can very carefully check your spending and make an appropriate decision that will help you conduct your business more economically.
Let's look at a small example. There is an opportunity to take a sandwich from home, which costs twenty rubles, or buy a bun at work for fifty. The difference seems to be small, but in a month - half a thousand rubles. Too much, but not too much? Then in a year - six thousand rubles. Almost the minimum monthly pension. And this is in one year! On one bun! Amazing right? And if you carefully and scrupulously calculate your spending, you will understand that, by slightly changing your mode of life, you can significantly save. One more example? Let's imagine a small town for 70 thousand people. The fare for a fixed-route taxi is 10 rubles. We spend 20 per day. Suppose a person commutes to work only 20 days a month. Total - 400. For a year - 4800. You can buy a good, high-quality and reliable sports bike, which will pay off in 3-5 years. On it, having acquired the proper skill, you can safely accelerate to 100 kilometers per hour (although we do not forget about the limit of 60 km / h) and get to the place of work faster than by minibus. And here it does not yet take into account the health benefits that the cyclist will receive. And needless to say that they are not afraid of traffic jams?
Conclusion
In order to have an idea of the areas of your own life that can be improved, you must first draw up a thorough and detailed analysis of spending. Based on this data, you can make the plan that is as accurate as possible. And then financial management will be easier. After all, it's one thing to hear from someone that you can provide your life. It is completely different to think that you can save and invest, say, so much money in eight years that in the future it will be possible to live without hunching around somewhere in an unloved job, but doing what you like. And to achieve such a beautiful, exciting and necessary goal will take a lot of work. You may have to combine several jobs, but believe me, it's worth it. After all, what could be more beautiful than the ability to decide for yourself what your free time will be spent on? Where should you direct your work? What are the goals to achieve? To be the master of your life is the destiny of man.