Have you ever wondered how comes that certaing families never manage to get out of debt? Even if you paid them all debt today, in a matter of 1-2 months they will be in the same debt again. Once there, they manage to keep a floating line, but it seems like that is their personal level of buoyancy: they can’t float closer to the surface, nor they go deeper.
Well, such people lack conscious cash management. While they do it inconsciously (proved by the fact that they keep the debt level constant), they are not able to manage it by thinking their financial steps every month.
Ideas for those who want to try a change:
- For two-three months (while you are in your usual debt), write down all your expenses, and group them on big categories, such as food, drink, housecleaning, house bills, children stuff, clothes, leisure. It is not going to be easy, but you have to push yourself to do it, otherwise you’ll never get conscious about your cash management.
- Look at those categories, see which costs you the most, then try to reduce a little bit from all of them (don’t cut all the leisure stuff, because you’ll get frustrated, and once you’ll have more money than usual, you’ll be eager to spend more), enough as to create a small fund which will become bigger and bigger with every month that passes.
- Next month, when you get your salaries, split everything from the very beginning, in the above mentioned categories, according to the expenses you’ve had in the past. It is helpful if you can get some boxes or other recipients, or even wallets, label them and fill them up with the respective amounts.
- If this does not apply for you, as you get the money in the bank account, still do it, but instead of filling the boxes with money, put inside some pieces of paper on which you write the respective amounts you’ll be able to spend for the next month.
- Every time you make a purchase, depeding on the case, you take money from the correspondent box, or you deduct the amount from the initial one, and write down the result.
- Even if you earn more in one month, allocate the usual amounts for the various categories and put the rest into the savings account. You’ll be one step closer to paying your debt.
I promise you that after a couple of months you’ll see the benefits. Sometimes you’ll be so lazy, that you’ll refrain from shopping because the thought of having to write down all those purchases will terrify you.
