Focusing on what you earn and the benefits your employer provides are important, but these things won’t matter as much as they should if you can’t manage your money. Making a monthly budget, using a bill checklist and budget spreadsheet, is a simple step all veterinary nurses can take toward improving their overall financial health.
1. Identify Your Income Streams
The first part of your monthly budget should list all the money you earn. This will of course include money from all of your jobs and side hustles, but it should also include less obvious sources of regular revenue, such as child support payments or money your significant other earns if you share expenses. Add up all your sources of income to get your total monthly income.
2. Set Your Savings Goals
The second part of your monthly budget should list all the things you need to save for on a monthly basis. These could be things like regular retirement savings, savings for a new car, savings for Christmas gifts or birthday gifts you purchase once a year, or savings for large yearly payments like car insurance or homeowner’s association fees. If you have a large payment you make for something once a year, divide that payment by 12 to determine how much you should save each month. Add up all of these savings to determine the total amount you need to save each month.
3. List Your Expenses
The largest part of your budget is the list of expenses. Credit card payments, student loans, grocery expenses, rent/mortgage payments, and anything else you spend money on needs to be added to this list. Add up all of these expenses and then add this number to the total amount of money you need to save. This gives you the total amount of money you are spending every month.
4. Balance Your Budget
Finally, look at the difference in your income, savings, and expenses. If the total amount of money you are spending every month is more than your total amount of income, you need to either cut expenses or earn more income in order to balance your budget. Look for any non-essential expenses like cell phone charges, going out to dinner, shopping trips, and streaming services that you may be able to decrease or eliminate entirely. With all of your spending on display, it may be surprising to see where your money is going, and it is often easier than you may think to eliminate unnecessary expenses. If you’ve cut as many expenses as you can, earning more money, at least temporarily, will be needed to pay off any debts that contribute to your total monthly expenses.