It's time for a short break, but there's a key factor in making it a success: planning. And the same goes for your finances.

Cristian Delgado: How to budget

Cristian Delgado and Natalia de Santiago give us the top tips on good budgeting to help you plan your family finances properly.

  

Natalia de Santiago: Budgeting is the key to helping you achieve your financial goals

Find out more about budgeting: how to do it, what to bear in mind, what the so-called "hidden costs" are and lots more about this subject, from our expert.

Learn finances with Positive Balance

If there's one key tool to boost your family finances, it's budgeting.

Make an annual budget

To start with, even if you make a monthly budget, you should always make an annual one, as not every month is the same.

Look at last year's budget

The budget must be like a photo without any filters, i. e. it must be realistic. Therefore the best thing is to base it on the previous year.

Categorise your budget

The key is to assign a category to every expense. The name you give to each category is the least of it - the trick is to tidy it all up. To be clear: the “MISCELLANEOUS” category is not useful.

Watch out for hidden costs

Watch out for hidden costs: the ones you pay once a year and tend to forget. Also keep an eye on costs that look small, but by being repetitive they mount up like the regular ones.

Your budget must balance

To make your budget balance, your income must be the same as your spending plus savings. But don't get carried away - a budget is something that exists to help you and will get better over time.

   

If you want to find out more about budgeting, saving, investment, home finance,
cybersecurity and lots of other financial culture topics: 

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