Economy & Credit Chest

Investors are intimidated by many investments. Hedge funds are thought to employ exotic strategies that the investor could never understand. Real estate is said to be too difficult for average investors. A feeling of inferiority has channeled many investors away from safe, appropriate investments and into what are marketed as “simple, sure things.” The avoidance of real estate in the 1990s due to intimidation by stockbrokers, who labeled it complex, accompanied by the propaganda that stocks required no work and are
the best investment for the long run led to much grief in 2000 and 2001.

Of the three budgets, this one usually provides the biggest shock to our system. As opposed to the ideal budget, where we are estimating what we spend each month, the actual budget adds up the real receipts.

Pay close attention to this budget as you do it. It likely contains many of the reasons you find yourself in debt, and are now are struggling to get out. To construct your actual budget, you’re going to need to gather everything that shows money flowing in and out of your household. This includes your pay stubs, your bank
and credit card statements, and your check register.

Once you have these things, grab a separate sheet of paper and a highlighter. Now, go through and begin dividing up the expenses for the month into the categories on the Three-Budget-System Worksheet at the end of this chapter. As you add up your totals, transfer the result to your actual budget worksheet. Be sure to highlight the transactions you’ve already included on your statements or check register. This will keep you from accidentally doubling up.

Remember, you don’t need a separate line on the budget for each place you spend money. Rather, you’re going to combine like expenses into the same categories. For example, instead of having a separate line for McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell, you’ll just have one category called “Eating Out.”

The first budget you should make is the ideal budget. I call it the ideal budget because it is the one that you make without actually looking at the numbers. Its primary purpose is for comparison with the actual budget, to see where your estimates of what you should spend are dramatically different from what you actually spend.

For many people, the reality of our old spending habits hits home as we answer “I don’t know” to a lot of the categories. Add this to the fact that our total expenses under our ideal budget are often more than we earn each month, and we’ve got a great source of motivation for changing things. Here are some tips for completing your ideal budget:

Be honest. It doesn’t do you any good at this point to start guessing low on your expenses or high on your income.

Go with your gut. As you complete each line of your ideal budget, go with the first number that pops into your head. Usually the first number that pops into your head is also the same number that guides your purchasing decisions each month.

Don’t feel bad. The whole point of this exercise is to get you out of debt. The ideal budget is a tool to help