It is impossible to stress enough why it is important to budget your monthly income appropriately. Most of the United States households have one person working or one looking for work, and struggle to make their monthly bills. Even if there is more than one income in the house, if the “breadwinner” loses their job it can be difficult to cover the mortgage, groceries, electricity, phone, and other expenses one has. If there are medical bills, credit cards, and a few unknown expenses it can be even harder to deal with the monthly bills on a small income.
Here are a few hints on how to budget your monthly income to avoid the cash advance cycle. Cash advances have their uses, but in general if you are already in debt and cannot pay bills with the ones you have getting further into debt won’t help.
- On the 15th of every month look at your next month’s bills. While you may have some unknowns you can begin to budget your income. There are definitely known factors like your mortgage that will not change.
- Use a spreadsheet to outline what bills need to be paid and when. This spreadsheet should have the company, the date the bills must be paid, and the amount. All companies will accept payment for a bill the day it is due, even if you have to call in the payment. You should also record whether the bill can be automatically set up or if you have to set it up each month.
Recent Comments