Personal financial advice
Even in times of prosperity we can struggle with our finances, and recent events in the world economy are causing hardship for many people. Whatever your situation, basic budgeting is an important part of managing your life; here are some resources to help you.
Ten steps to help you control your personal finances
1. Write down headings for all the things you buy. Don't make it too complicated but be specific and do not use 'Other' as a category. We'll call these 'expenditure categories'.
2. Start recording in a notebook every time you spend money - how much, when, what category.
3. Divide your expenditure categories into 'Monthly' (or weekly if you prefer) and 'Occasional'.
4. Also note which categories are essential and which are optional.
5. Set up a savings account which is easy to pay into and easy to draw out of. This is going to be used to save up for those occasional expenditures. This is essential.
6. Do an annual budget for these occasional expenditures and decide how much per month (or week) you will need to save to pay for these things without the savings account getting overdrawn.
7. Do a monthly (or weekly) budget which starts with income from all sources, goes though the regular expenditure categories, and ends up with the very important 'Savings for occasional needs'.
8. Decide to have a budget day ('pay day' would be a good choice) when you compare for the last month/week what you actually spent compared to what you budgeted. Use this information to decide whether your budget needs to be changed and what actions you need to take over the next period to do better.
9. Budget day is also a good day to move money into your savings account and check off that budget as well. If you are using the spreadsheets, replace any budget items for the month with what they actually cost and, if necessary, re-budget for the future months.
10. Move into your savings account at least what you have budgeted and if there is any over from the previous period put that there as well to cover for any surprise items which may come up.
Sample spreadsheets
We have created sample spreadsheets for monthly and annual budgeting. You can download these files by right-clicking on the links below and selecting "Save target as..." / "Save link as..." and save the file to your computer. You will need Microsoft Excel or equivalent to open these files, a free Excel equivalent can be downloaded as part of OpenOffice.org
Other resources
For free and confidential debt advice, contact Consumer Credit Counselling Service via their website or by calling 0800 138 1111.
Several churches in the area offer personal face to face debt advice. These are St Andrews Church (07599618602); The Salvation Army and Grace Church, Kempston.
For a guide to money-saving ideas and useful organisations, go to the Credit Action website.
Stewardship have recently relaunched their money education website.
