One of the first realizations that you are on the ever-winding road to becoming an adult is being able to be financially responsible.
To be classed as financially responsible you must be able to live within your means, this is applicable for everyone, but nobody’s circumstances or situations are the same.
Whether the difference is you being a stay-at-home mother or father where the spouse is the breadwinner and you have a budget for house supplies or couple both working and looking to save for a house.
The circumstances maybe are different but being able to live within your annual income is being financially responsible. Here we have few exclusive ways to help you to know the benefits of being financially responsible.
Budgets
Make a budget for anything and everything you can think of. Set an amount to spend on food, fuel, bills, rent, and how much you want to put into savings. The most important thing with a budget is that you have to stick to it!
Going over what you have set shouldn’t happen, so when you set your budget make sure it’s enough to fulfill the requirements of what’s needed.
For example, if your food budget for the week is $100 but that means you won’t be able to eat for a day isn’t an achievable budget.
Reduce Expenses
There are many ways you can look to reduce what you spend in between paycheques. You can change where you shop, look for the cheaper supermarkets or suppliers. Consider the own brand consumables, many supermarkets make their substitute for name-brand items and it can be just as good if not better at a fraction of the price. Save on fuel by cycling or walking to work or your friend’s house.
Savings
Always look at how you can save, how much can you put away for that rainy day? Whilst it is entirely dependent on your income, the recommended amount that you save per month is around 30% of your total salary.
Now, this is not possible for everyone as their income and outgoings may not support this, in reality, whatever you can put away is a step in the right direction.
Look at your budgets and if you have anything leftover from the food budget add that into your savings.
Emergency Funds
Once we are out in the big wide world without the possibility of support from anyone we need to be prepared in case things go wrong. Look to have a separate account or an amount that you have earmarked for emergencies. You want this to be able to cover you not being able to draw an income for 3 to 6 months. Imagine you lost your job or ended up in a the it’s hospital and couldn’t work. Having an emergency fund to cover you in the worst possible case until you can get back on your feet removes a lot of unneeded stress.
Increase Your Income
Financial responsibility at work is a great challenge these days. If you want to go away and have a holiday, bolster up your saving account or pay off your credit card, having a second job or income is a great way to be able to achieve this. Whether its part-time weekend work or something that occupies an extra hour or two in the evening having a second income that could go untouched into whatever you want will fast track you to your end goal.
Reduce Or Eliminate Your Debt
It’s hard to save or put money towards anything if you have a looming debt. Either credit cards, overdrafts or catalogue buy now pay later schemes charge you a percentage for using their money.
All these debts will have minimum payments that you need to fulfil, failure to pay will increase the debt dramatically.
Look to consolidate your debts with your bank. If you cannot consolidate with your bank, try and concentrate on one debt at a time.