VUAC Finance

Posts Tagged ‘Budget’

Common wisdom has it that if you create a budget you will save money. Creating a budget also is a responsible adult thing to do, blah, blah, blah. “They” also say you should balance your checkbook, well I don’t do that either. I never even thought about a budget until I got married and had to combine finances. My idea of a budget was when I ran out of money then I quit spending, which isn’t quite as irresponsible as it sounds. I didn’t have a credit card that I charged things on so I was just spending what I had.

Then I got married and my husband was giving me money when I needed it, that was a pretty cool situation for a little while. However, when I spent 0 in one day and wanted more money let’s just say my husband was “concerned”. I wanted more money (I mean I hadn’t even bought any books yet, come on!). Well of course my husband wanted to know where I spent the money, a reasonable request I thought.

So I told him I spent on gas, at the doctors, at the grocery store (on his cigarettes if I recall correctly), on a birthday present for my nephew, on these really cute shoes, and I still had some money left.

Press release

17 March 2011

For immediate release

Wishes for the Budget

With the Budget just around the corner (Wednesday 23 March), we canvassed some of our clients – a mixture of business owners and professionals – for their Budget wishes. Understandably in this climate, our clients have a number of concerns – covering not only business issues, but also worries about the NHS, for instance, and our ageing population.

Martin Pollins, managing director of Bizezia in Haywards Heath says: “We need tax relief on private medical insurance premiums, which will help the overburdened NHS.”

Richard Bamford, key account director with Citrus Healthcare Consulting in Hildenborough agrees that the government needs to introduce measures to reduce the financial pressures placed on the NHS.

“Individuals who take out private medical insurance should be encouraged and rewarded for taking responsibility for their health and wellbeing, therefore reducing the cost burden placed on the NHS,” he says. “The constant advancements in medical treatment come at a price, with more money needing to be pumped into the NHS for it to cope with these costs. People should be given a tax break to help pay for their private medical insurance, especially pensioners. If the government wants the NHS to be sustainable in the future, bold decisions need to be made.”

There are many things to keep in mind when traveling, whether you are a budget traveler or not. You obviously want to preserve what you have money to travel and not lose it or it was stolen. You also want to keep yourself and traveling companions safe from harm. Here are some tips to follow to make your trip safe and enjoyable in a foreign country.

1. Have a valid passport and visas necessary to travel. Make two copies of your passport. Store in a separate part of your travel luggage and the other with whom to leave the house.

2. Be aware of any travel warnings for the country you are. Learn about security and safety, to your destination.

3. Safe travel insurance!

4. Make sure that you have been vaccinated against any infectious disease figures prominently in the area you are traveling with.

5. To make sure that we can contact you in case of an emergency, make a copy of your itinerary and leave it with someone at home.

6.

Travel light and not Pack the values that you do not want to lose. Leave your jewelry at home, but take the extra points if you can not live without them.

7. Remember, you are a foreigner, when you are traveling. You are a guest in their country, and therefore should comply with its laws, and to some extent, their customs. For example, if you’re a woman traveling in an Islamic state, be careful of your clothes.

Step 1

Setting up a budget for yourself or your family is very important. It should not be viewed as a way to punish yourself and reduce your spending. It should be seen as a way to stop wasting your money and use your money more effectively for the things you and your family really desire. Listed below are several free budget worksheets and where you can find them. I hope you find them as useful as I did in setting up an easy and effective budget plan.

Step 2

Set up a Family Budget Planner which is a yearly budget spreadsheet for family budget planning. Includes a detailed list of income and expense categories for your budget planning.

Step 3

Simple Budget Planner is a simple, automatic budget planner. Starting from your monthly income, this budget planner recommends spending amounts for common categories. All numbers are adjustable to fit your needs and your financial budget requirements.

Step 4

Wedding Budget Manager can be used to ensure you are spending within your allocated wedding budget. The percentage field shows where the majority of your budget is being spent.

Step 5

Monthly Household Budget is great for a family or roommates. A monthly budget worksheet for comparing projected and actual expenses. Detailed list of income and expense categories for family and household use.

Step 6

Personal Budget Tracker is a budget tracker with worksheets for solo budgets as well as for two-person budgets. Flexible and customizable to work with any situation.

When working on our  Household Budget plan, it is hard to ignore that times are tough financially all over the world. We are in the middle of a global recession that many believe is as bad as the Great Depression of the 1930′s. I would challenge this presumption with facts but right now but because many people are losing their jobs, their incomes are getting cut, and their expenses are going up, it is hard to change the mindset that has pervaded the culture through media to believe such a thing.

It is said that a recession is when my neighbor loses his job and a depression is when I lose mine. When in financial straits, it is hard to see the forest for the trees and easy to panic if more expenses have been created than the income can handle.

It is easy to see how these people might find themselves unable to cover all of the monthly expenses they have in their  Household Budget plan. When that time comes for you, take a look at your income and expenses and find a way to make ends meet. It can be done, and it can be done by anyone.

We, students of our dear nation’s state universities and colleges, express our objection to the proposed budget cuts on our institutions of higher education.

We believe that higher education, in particular, is not merely a vehicle for private career development, but an instrument of social change. Higher education serves a public and social purpose. Contrary to current market-driven economic policies, it is a public good, and thus, should not be left alone and vulnerable to free market forces and commercial interests.

Granted such premise, we affirm the idea that education, at all levels, is a right of everyone and a non-negotiable function of the State. It is imperative for the government to provide higher education to its citizens, and thus maintain and improve upon the quality and accessibility of higher education in public institutions.

We thus express our opposition to and rejection of the proposed budget cuts on our country’s state universities and colleges (SUC’s).

The allocation for our country’s SUC’s in the proposed 2011 national budget has been reduced by 1.7 percent, from P23.8 billion in 2010 to only P23.4 billion this year. The proposed budget for 25 out of 112 SUCs has also been decreased by as much as 23.5%. Funds allotted for the University of the Philippines (UP), the country’s premier state university, with a population of 52,000, has been slashed by P1.39 billion or by 20.11%. The Philippine Normal University’s budget is reduced by P92 million cut or by 23.59%. P88 Million has been deducted from the budget of Bicol University cutting its budget by 18.82%.