All in Budgeting
I’m having a muck around with one of two of our investments this week. A “re-balance” is the fancy terminology, but I’m taking the opportunity to make sure that we are sticking to our investment plan because I have a tendency to wander off track. Some people are super organised and set a date to do this once a year, I don’t, I’ve just become aware that ‘it’s time’.
As part of the Sorted Money Week, I recently asked you to send me your money-related questions, which of course you did. I’ve selected a bunch of them and given my thoughts on each, plus added in a few links and resources to round out the answers for you.
I realised recently that I rattle off financial terms, assuming that people know what they are. And that annoyed me a bit, because the reason I started blogging was to demystify financial jargon and yet, here I was, rattling off a bit of jargon! One of these terms is ‘sinking fund’. Today I thought I would quickly explain what a sinking fund is and why I use them myself.
Even though Level 2 had felt quite ‘normal’ here in Alexandra, going to Level 1 on the 9th of June did have me going “phew, we did it”. Collectively as a town, region and as a country, WE DID IT! That’s a pretty good feeling. Well done whanau of 5 million! But personally speaking, I don’t quite feel out of the woods yet. My thoughts are along the lines of “don’t relax too soon Ruth”. Therefore, I’m going to listen to my gut instinct and from a financial standpoint, I’m not done with being cautious just yet.
I got a message this week from Joe. He said that he is after some “relevant situational budgeting help” and would like to see me help out and offer thoughts on “the most basic of budgeting for the families in severe need now”. So I thought I would reach out to someone else to help me write the blog post this week, someone who I consider to be a bit of a Budgeting Queen herself. It’s none other than Bradie from @kiwigirlonabudget
So, together we have worked on this blog post for you this week.
I thought I’d keep a diary for this week, so you can see what we are doing to prepare for the months ahead in this rapidly evolving situation. Take from it what you will and discard the rest. But first and foremost when it comes to money at a time like this, whether your job is secure or you have just lost it, the absolute key thing to keep in mind is to: Always spend less than you earn
If there was ever any doubt about what an emergency might look like, well this is it, folks! I hope that each and every one of you is coping well and today I wanted to let you know what Jonny and I are doing, in the hope that you might gain a few pointers about what to do with whatever situation you may find yourselves in.
In February 2020 I went to Dunedin to spend the day with the PocketSmith team. I asked my audience if there were any specific questions they had about using the PocketSmith budgeting software and I put those questions directly to the support team in the office. PocketSmith has answered all of your questions and I’m the first to admit that I’ve learned a thing or two by reading them.
As 2019 drew to a close one of the things I was looking forward to was the fact I get to start a whole new BUDGET for 2020! I’m telling you this in my first blog post of the decade because I’m convinced that tracking income and expenses are a major reason why and how people take control of their money.
