Hospital Duty

I've been sleeping in the hospital and taking care of my mom for a couple of days now... and it has been affecting my mood lately. Apparently, staying in the hospital, albeit with free wifi, 24/7 aircon and 3 meals, is quite depressing.

Sigh.

I know I should be strong for my mom, but maybe I'm not that strong enough yet. I need to have Christian songs playing non-stop on my laptop to keep my mood from dropping.

May God help me and give me strength.

Five Common Budget Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

So far, i'm on the right track.. just need to consistently apply what I'm doing now :)

Five Common Budget Mistakes and How to Avoid Them | Money Estate - Personal Finance Blog

Posted by Money Advisor in Budgeting, Financial PlanningMar 21st, 2009 | 7 responses

Budgeting is something that most of us learn about in grade school and don't recall it comes to crunch time and we realize that unless we take the reins and take control over the finances it could quite simply cause our personal finances to come crashing down. When making a budget, many people make mistakes but constantly tweak the budget until they find the right combination of savings, expenses and debts which must be repaid.

Avoid these mistakes in order to make your financial plan easy to follow:

Mistake No. 1: Not writing down and Defining Your Budget

A budget may sound great while you calculate the options for your income in your head, but until you write it on paper – it can be difficult to make these ideas come to life and begin to increase your personal financial health. Take the time to write your budget down on paper, or simply create a spreadsheet which can easily be accessed, changed and updated with the available funds or changes that you have made to make the budget easier to follow.

Mistake No. 2: Not Planning for Surprise and One-time Expenses

Planning for the unexpected is an essential way to ensure that you are prepared for whatever it is that life throws at you. Whether you have a pet that needs an unexpected trip the vet or medication to purchase for your child, these expenses can be confusing when you have not allocated for these expenses that can change from month to month.

Mistake No.3: Not Budgeting for Contributions to an Emergency Fund

An emergency fund is an essential part of creating a healthy financial plan that allows you to maintain comfort in the time of a job loss or illness within the family. There are many situations that can cause the unexpected expenses to wreak havoc on the finances – having an emergency fund allows the consumer to prepare for these situations and therefore allow the consumer to have an alternative to expensive interest rates when choosing to finance the expenses with a credit card.

Mistake No.4: Not Changing the Budget

Each month the budget should be reevaluated and changes should be created if you find that you are spending more in one part of the budget, or less in one part of the budget. If you are unable to make the budget balance and have your income get into line with your expenses than it may be time to consider taking on additional hours or finding a way to up your income.

Mistake No. 5: Leaving Income for Spending without Budgeting

Every part of the budget should be accounted for, just like every dollar of the income should be accounted for. Any excess over the expenses should not be spent as a little something extra for the consumer it should be used towards savings and investments and establishing the emergency fund. Tweak the budget to accommodate the influx of income and determine where the money should be allocated.

Image by linusb4.

Related posts:

1. Budgeting Tips for Newbies When we have our income before us every month,...
2. Are You on the Right Track to a Healthy Financial Future? Did you know that there are certain techniques that...
3. Budgeting Tools to Help You Manage Your Personal Finance To make your budget more effective and work efficient,...

Tags: budget mistakes, Budgeting, budgeting tips

 Do you want to receive regular personal finance tips and advice automatically? If so, please subscribe to Money Estate updates via email or via RSS Reader.

--
Grace

"Failure is not defeat unless you stop trying"

life lesson # 678 - do no always give a child everything she wants because she will have a problem adapting to change later on in life ... spoken from experience!

Supposedly Just Passing By

I just decided to pass by since I watched Alice in Wonderland with dreamspinner_ last Friday and she mentioned about LJ, hehe. The last time i had an entry was October! My gosh! I've been awfully busy balancing school life, work life, family life and love life.

Work, of course, takes most percentage of the pie that is my lfie while school comes in second. Love life would have the third largest share, since it more or less overlaps with school - my boyfriend being an MBA student as well - so our 'dates' mostly are study sessions where we sit side by side in campus, typing away at our laptops with the occasional consultation or two on some analysis that we are not sure about.

Family life, unfortunately, has to come in last with almost just a day at San Juan (Saturday night until Sunday late afternoon) although I'm now texting with my mom on a daily basis to ask how her day is. This act would have probably struck me as weird a few years back but it just makes sense now - since i'm living away from home and she has cancer.

My mom is the best, most kind, most loving and the nicest person I know on this planet, my heart aches whenever I think of the pain she has to experience each day and yet she still remains strong and all she asks for is our time, our love which she unconditionally gave us when we were small.

It's a sad thought really but when I'm at Makati, I don't want to go all emo and think deeply about this lest I be useless and teary-eyed. I guess this is my way of coping - only allowing myself to feel the pain when I'm in San Juan. This mostly likely is because the reality of it is in my face and there's no where to stash away these feelings.

This should be enough crying for one day.. now back to my case analysis paper... and then zzzz

The Man's Bday is Coming up...

Event Planner Mode: On.

Should it be with me only?

Should I invite friends?

Do we just eat?

Sing at World Music?

It should be stuff he likes...

hmmmm

Pwede bang mag LOA?

I'm bored with my work.. there's no job depth... I need some job enrichment according tot he Trajano Job Satisfaction model

Management Science Jargon

I read my refresher paper on Operations Management recently and I had a hard time understanding it!!

I want to revise it to become more layman friendly because my proposals are useless if not understood by the business owner... tsk! To think I was so proud and accomplished after finishing that paper.

There are times really when you need to put your work aside then look at it again after sometime to have a more objective point of view.

Oh well, I'll update that paper when I have time :)

Updating Business Requirements

I've been tasked to update business requirements due to some rule changes

I like this work, it feels important.

Maybe I should consider branching into Business Analysis together with Quality Assurance.

Hmmmm...

I wonder what specific skills and years of experience I need? --> http://www.softwarecertifications.org/qai_csba.htm

I know that one of my problems is not having a firm grasp of programming language / logic.. and I still have no interest in learning one hehehe

We'll see.. just a passing thought though 

Happiness!

Just to break the continuous stress related posts in my blog, i just want to say that I AM HAPPY.

*lol*

Despite the trials that come my way, I can say that I am at my happiest point right now because I know that this happiness is well-placed and has a stronger foothold than my previous frivolous happy-go-lucky type of joy. :)

Happiness is what we make it ;)

i. am. stressed.

Since it's the weekend, i was thinking that i could treat myself to a much needed hair-cut and maybe a foot massage at Cinese foot spa since my left leg/ankle/foot hurts.

I've been resisting the needless self-treat temptation until the time comes that it becomes necessary. I actually think this is THE time since I've been stressing left and right and also as a preparation to the brewing busyness of the current term.

This is a justification to treating myself - I actually think I'm entitled to despite the current situation. I believe that it is also a preventive measure against future, more debilitating stress-related illnesses.

Breathe in. Breathe out. De-stress.

Rant of the Day

hates that i was not taught anything but expected to provide something.

hate it

hate it

hate it.

*tears forms into a gazillion pieces*