Drawing Expenses and expenditure plan is important

We all have our needs and wants but it's important to select them wisely considering the amount at hand. I always have my scale of preference. I write out my needs and wants in order of importance separately and select the ones that I would tackle for the month

Remember, I would always consider my income to enable me to plan based on the amount to be used. I always have a sharing formula for my budget. For my needs, I use 50% of my income.20% goes for my wants and 20% goes to my savings. The remaining 10% is for some unplanned expenses that arise without having plans for them

I try as much as possible to always prioritise my needs over my wants because I can certainly do without them. However, Getting some of the things I want makes me happy because I believe I deserve to have some fun with the money I work for. For instance, I don't really need DSTV. It's not a must I buy one, but I need to buy foodstuff, pay my nepa bill, security and so on. However, having DSTV gives me comfort. It makes me feel relaxed because it gives me access to watch soccer and other programmes on TV

We all have different ways of planning our budgets. I'm doing mine this way because I can easily know my monthly income as a salary earner. But in the case of business owners, a thorough budget has to be done to know how much is made to checkmate the amount to be spent. When I was into buying and selling shoes, I have a special way of planning my budget for the business and my survival. I would look at the income and compare it with the expenditure to know if what I'm spending is more than what I'm generating. This helps me to cut down costs if I'm moving above my limit. For instance, I was having a space I rented and I pay for security and electricity monthly, plus tax. I would calculate how much I made in a month, and then subtract it from the bills. Whatever is left would now be treated using my 50,20,20,10 percent rule. Since it's based on percentage, my budget was never stable because the income isn't the same every month. So this keeps me balanced. If I can afford a jar of oil this month from my budget following my normal sharing percentage, I manage it for the month, and if it is half jar the percentage could buy the following month, I won't go beyond because the percentage is already drawn and if tampered, would affect my expenditure

That's just the simple way. Drawing a budget is not difficult. What is really difficult is following the budget religiously

Budgeting helps. It's a way of disciplining oneself to achieve a particular goal. If it can be judiciously applied, there would always be a financial improvement in one's life