Twitter tells me that November is Financial Literacy Month. How exciting!
Immediately, I followed ItPaystoKnow (@FCACan) and discovered a brand new blog from the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada. The first topic is “why you should make a budget”. This is a topic I very much enjoy, partly because of my admiration for EXCEL spreadsheets.
When I traveled around the world, I budgeted and tracked every cent.
When I was considering the house purchase, I created multiple budgets and scenarios with formulas to account for different variables and changes.
There are plenty of free budget templates that you can use if you don’t want to customize anything or find spreadsheets intimidating. One of my favourites is the default monthly budget form in Google Sheets.
Tracking your spending takes a bit of dedication. All I do is put everything on my debit and credit card and then look at my bank statements. At mid-month and the end of the month, I input my bank statements into the spreadsheet and categorize the spending into “food”, “bills”, “house”, “fun” etc. Then I can clearly see how much I am spending, how much I need to meet those needs, and how much is left over for saving.
For the last 4 months, I’ve been diligent at keeping track of expenses and adjust my lifestyle/budget. 2 times a month, 15 minutes each session and I can plan more effectively.
Give it a try!
Other Twitter accounts to follow (for financial literacy)
CanadaRevenueAgency
@CanRevAgency
FinanceCanada
@FinanceCanada
GetSmarterAboutMoney
@smarter_money
