Tag: discretionary expenses

Step 77: Make a Year Budget

~ Inge Natalie Hol ~ Leave a comment
Step 77 of the 100 steps mission to financial independence: Make a Year Budget
Step 77 of the 100: Make a Year Budget

We’ve looked in detail at making a monthly budget where you carefully plan your expenses per category per month to ensure that you achieve your goals, both short-term as well as long-term, especially when it comes to savings, pension and investment goals. Without a budget it is easy to overspend and to lose the overview of where your money goes each month.

In addition to making a monthly budget it is wise to also draw up a yearly budget in which you make a yearlong plan for your expenses. We’ve already touched upon this a little when we discussed making a monthly budget, when we looked at the importance of bearing in mind certain yearly expenses that don’t come up every month but might come up just a few times or even just once a year.

A yearly budget doesn’t only ensure that you remember to budget for these expenses though. The added advantage of a yearly budget is that you can make a better and more accurate plan for your expenses by bridging the gap between your long-term financial goals with your day-to-day spending patterns. Of course, having a monthly budget already gives you the opportunity to plan expenses far better than if you just spend without being fully aware of your monthly total spending pattern. But it won’t give you as much insight into whether you are on your way to achieving your long-term financial goals or whether you are still quite a long way off. By making a budget for a full year you get a far better overview of this. Continue reading “Step 77: Make a Year Budget” →

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Step 19: Budget with the 50/20/30 rule

~ Inge Natalie Hol ~ Leave a comment
Step 19 of the 100 steps mission to financial independence: Budget with the 50/20/30 rule
Step 19: Budget with the 50/20/30 rule

When you were making your first budget in step 17, you might have felt it was a bit of a stab in the dark. Maybe you would have appreciated a simple formula that indicated how to allocate your money in a way that would just make it faster and easier to budget. A formula that also ensured you’d work towards you goals. Or maybe you were happy to rely on your own methods but would now like to find out about a general indicator of how much to allocate to each area.

In this step we are going to have a closer look at a very common concept in budgeting, the so-called 50 / 20 / 30 rule. I’d like to think of it as a guideline more than a rule, as depending on your financial position and your goals, your expense patterns change and you might spend more or less in certain categories at certain moments in your life. It is therefore wise to not just adopt but to adapt this guideline and adjust it to your own specific needs and circumstances.  Continue reading “Step 19: Budget with the 50/20/30 rule” →

Step 11: Identify your Discretionary Expenses

~ Inge Natalie Hol ~ 1 Comment
Step 11 of the 100 steps mission to financial independence: Identify your Discretionary Expenses
Step 11: Identify your Discretionary Expenses

Discretionary expenses are expenses for thing that you don’t absolutely need in order to survive or run your household. They are often optional (some would even argue unnecessary) expenses that mainly enhance your day-to-day life and make it more fun. Think about dinners at the restaurant, holidays and a trip to the cinema. To give a definition of a discretionary expense, it:

  1. is an expense of a variable amount that you have more or less complete control over;
  2. might or might not have a regular time interval;
  3. is not needed for day-to-day living;
  4. you can cut out all together relatively easily.

Discretionary expenses are usually the type of expenses that people cut back on first during tough financial times, and also the first ones that increase again when their economic situation improves. That coffee you get every day at Starbucks on your way to work? That’s a discretionary expense: you have complete control over it, you don’t need it for day-to-day living, and you can cut it out all together and make your own coffee when you get to work or bring one in from home in a thermos flask. Continue reading “Step 11: Identify your Discretionary Expenses” →