No matter where you are in life, it’s critical that you start saving for your future! But in order to save you have to make a plan. Simply use the budget tracker below to track your income and expenses each month!
For a step by step guide to use the tracker, scroll down.
Steps to use the tracker
At the beginning of each month:
1: Determine your income.
At the top of the budget tracker under “Amount Estimated”, write down the money you get from all sources: your salary, money from legal side hustles, business income or income from investments. Leave the “Amount Actual” column empty for now.
2: Determine your monthly expenses.
Below your income, write out all of your expenses — expenses are everything that you will spend money on each month. Again, leave the “Amount Actual” column empty for now.
3: Determine your balance.
This is the step where you will determine how much you are able to save or how much you are overspending each month.
First, take your total income and subtract your total spending. (Income – expenses = balance)
To use the example above, if you make PHP 30,000 and you think you will spend PHP 16,099, that will leave you with a balance of PHP 13,901 at the end of the month.
- PHP 30,000 (income) – PHP 16,099 (expenses) = PHP 13,901 (balance)
In other words, you will spend PHP 13,901 less than you make. That is all money you can put towards savings! If you keep that up each month you could save PHP 166,812 in just one year.
4. Review and adjust your budget.
Remember the column on the left (Amount Estimated) is only an estimate as the beginning of the month. Now it’s important to review what your actual expenses were to see if you were able to reach your savings goal or if you need to adjust your budget.
So, at the end of the month, go back and write down what all of your expenses actually were under the “Amount Actual”. Then revise your budget for the next month accordingly.
In the example above, you can see that the actual income was slightly smaller than the estimate and the expenses were slightly higher. Therefore, they can determine that they will need to reduce some expenses to achieve the savings goal they had set with the previous month.
Tala is operated by Tala Financing Philippines Inc., a licensed financing company with SEC Registration No. CS201710582 and Certificate of Authority No. 1132. Always study the terms and conditions and the disclosure statement before proceeding with any loan transaction.
