RSM - Shop To Save. $$$

Many people consider budgeting a dirty word. Sometimes they're just plain hard to stick to but if you do it right you will have the money put aside in the bank for the bills before they arrive.

The first thing people need to realize is they are not that hard to figure out.

Sure, if you are one of those people who are struggling at the moment with the bills it will be hard at first. Sometimes your income doesn't cover the outgoings. That's when borrowing from Peter to pay Paul comes into play. For example if you have money set aside in the bank for the electricity bill, but it's not due till 6 weeks time. And your rent is due now and you are $50 short. Use the money set aside for the electricity bill to make up the shortfall. And when you RSM savings is due within that time you can pay the money right back. You know I was never great with computers and still aren't if the truth be told. So when I first did my budgeting when we had got a computer I still wrote it all down in my trusty exercise book. There are lots of great programs that help you to set a budget. But if you don't own a computer or aren't confident on them I will tell you a simple way to work out one. It works for me. First you write down as many things you need to put money aside for. Then to get the amount you need to put aside weekly you work out by doing the following:

We'll use electricity bill as an example. Get the previous 12 months worth of bills add them together divide by 52 for the number of weeks in a year and I always round up. Say I came up with a figure of $25.48, then I would put aside $26.00 a week. If you were to be paid fortnightly you can still budget that way and

you would then put $52.00 a fortnight away.

The only difference is after you work out the bills, the amount you have for food will be halved.

Then you will take out the weekly amount to shop with leaving the other half in the bank for the next week. The best way for fortnightly shopper to realize the benefit of changing your ways is by doing the Maths. If you work out how many times you shop in a year, which is of course 26 multiply it by how much you spend normally to come up with how much you normally spend in one year. Then check out the saving guide for your shopping amount (half the fortnightly amount) and see just why you need to shop weekly. RSM cannot work for fortnightly shopping. A typical weekly budget might look like one of these.

Budget wages    $1100                               Budget wage $875

House payment      $350                               Rent          $200

Electricity                26                               Electricity      26

Water rates             18                               Water use      15 

Both car regos          22                                car rego         8    

Car repairs               15                               car repairs      15

Land rates               23                               Hbf                10

School fees             80                               school fees       2

Hbf                        15                               Gas                13

Petrol                   135                               Petrol            100

clothing                  20                               clothing           20 

Food                     220                              food              220  

Kids sport                15                              kids sport         15

Entertainment          10                             Entertainment      7

Music lessons           30                             Credit card        22

Sundries                 121                            car payment     112

Total                    1100                             sundries           90                   

                                                              total              875

As you would be aware most of us will have different needs specific to our own families. Some might be paying off a home others renting. I guess there's not really a typical budget as our needs really do vary from each individual household. What you can see from the above budgets are that they have a lot of different headings. The more things you set aside the money for' the easier it will be. The heading sundries is for all unexpected things, it is a good place to put your first few RSM savings to help build up

a little surplus for a rainy day.  Of course it goes without saying you should have just one account to put this money in.

The main thing is keeping a record of what's in the bank for what purpose. (Can you imagine that you've got heaps put aside for clothing and many other bills money has built up in the bank.) You look at the slip from the ready teller machine and it says you've got $1900 in there. You can't just go and spend it for the sake of it. If you have $300 in the bank for clothing, then sure go ahead and spend it. Leave the rest it is there for a reason. In your trusty little exercise book apart from the page with your budget on it, you will have 4 or 5 pages ruled up ready to record weekly or fortnightly transactions as if you are really banking it. Then you know exactly what's in the bank and for what. And of course whenever you borrow money from one (PETER) to pay another (PAUL) you record it in both areas to make paying it back easier.

For those who already budget well I apologize for going on so much. Of course you would be well aware of how important a point this is. If you still have problems in setting a budget and don't have a friend that can help there are many aid agencies that have people trained to help. Or the internet has heaps of

budget calculators and guides.