Let's Get Organized

Today's date 24/02/2013

I made excuses for why my savings account was always empty and why my bills where always paid late. Why sometimes I skipped meals or perhaps ate baked beans or pasta bake for a whole week straight.

I would say things like "I don't earn enough money" or "I really do need my gym membership" that I haven't once attended but pay for every month. Not to mention buying things on my credit card or just because they where on sale.


Then I decided to take a big step back. I looked at my pay slip and saw how much I was earning every month. Do you know what it wasn't that I needed to earn more money I just needed to get organized.

I started by writing down my monthly income then I wrote down all my expenses for the month and the dates that everything was due to be paid. Then I wrote all these down on my calender so I can visually see what expenses where due and how much it was each month.

The items like my rent, car loan and savings I had my employer pay a specific amount in to a separate account where these would be directly deducted from and the rest of my money went in to its usual account.

Doing this meant that I could then budget with the rest of the money I had left and I found that after I had paid all my expenses every month and put money away for savings I still had some cash left over which I would leave in my account for emergency cash.

Now before you can be successful doing this you first have to know where the heck your money is going. I did this by checking my every day account online and seeing every transaction I was making.

I would spend a lot of money on food. That's right food, I bought my coffee in the morning, fast food for lunch and sometimes even dinner. I skipped my payments to my credit card or bills that needed to be paid and so a lot of the time my account was in arrears so my bank would charge me fees every time and because I would pay my bills late I would then incur a late fee on those bills. It was a a bad cycle that had to be stopped.

My first step before organising my budget was stop purchasing things that I could bring from home like coffee, breakfast and lunch.

The next step was to speak with my bank and switch my credit card over to a low interest rate card that had a super low interest rate for the first six months and then a competitive low interest rate after that.

I then got all my bills out and called each bill provider and got a extension on each bill that was going to be paid late so that I would not incur a late fee or my service shut off.

I needed to go to my gym and cancel my membership as I could not find anyone else to take over my membership.

Then I made out my budget and set up a separate account for my rent, car loan and then a separate account for my savings and my everyday account had everything else in it. My calender showed the date that everything was due so I know exactly what gets debited from which account and on what day of that month that is.

It takes a few months for it to get going and for you to see and notice a difference but well worth it in the long run.