In this article, I will explain how to effectively use the monthly personal budget template and how to use it to achieve your financial goals.
1. Input your income:
A monthly personal budget should just be used to ESTIMATE your current earnings and spending status per month.
Income:
Most people have a relatively stable income. For me, I am salaried, which means that I get paid the same amount every paycheque. However, for some of you, you might be paid hourly or by commission, which means you might make more or less some months. Regardless, you should estimate on average how much you make per month.
Other Income:
Other income includes any other source of money that you make. This can be in the form of properties that you rent out, or your side-hustle, or dividends from your investments. In my perspective, having other sources of income is really good because if one source of income goes down, you still have other ways to make money. You should try to figure out ways to not only rely on your day job to make money, and start thinking outside the box.
2. Input your average monthly expenses:
Also, don’t include one time investments (ex. That one time where you bought a $2000 T.V). This section should only include how much you spend on average per month.
3. How much can you SAVE?:
The next step is to determine how much you want to save each time you receive your paycheque.
In this section you can determine how much money you are able to put away into your savings after each paycheque.
RRSP/PENSION: These are accounts that you can use to save for retirement. Using these accounts you can reduce the amount of taxes you a required to pay. Learn more here:
Savings: This is a general section that you can use to save for your short-term to medium-term financial goals. Any money that you allocate here you can put into your TFSA (Tax Free Savings Account).
4. Make some Estimations:
The fourth step is to input your estimations. If you live in Ontario, most of the estimations should be accurate. If you are not, than you can input estimations based on your unique province or state policy.
CPP (Canadian Pension Plan) and EI (Employment Insurance), are deductions that you have to pay if you are employed in Canada. CPP is approximately 5.25% and EI is approximately 1.58% of your total income. To learn more about these CPP and EI read: How to Read Your Pay Cheque.
The other important estimation is your tax rate. Your tax rate is based on the amount of TAXABLE Income that you have. If you have a higher taxable income, than you will have a higher tax rate. To learn more about how taxes and taxable income works read: Taxable income is the amount of income the government is allowed to tax. Each province in Canada has a different tax rate threshold. Therefore, to calculate it, use this external tax rate calculator.
Also, don’t include one time investments (ex. That one time where you bought a $2000 T.V). This section should only include how much you spend on average per month.
5. Analyze your Results:
The last step is to analyze your results using the DASHBOARD TAB.
Budget Breakdown:
Using this chart you can see the dollar amount of where your total income is going on a monthly or annual basis. This is helpful in determining if your financial goals are realistic.
Let’s say you want to purchase a $20,000 car with cash in two years. Looking at the budget breakdown, “Savings” column, you can determine how much you can save per year. If you can save more than $10,000 per year than your goal is realistic, if you can’t then you either have to adjust your goal or save more by spending less.
Income Distribution
Using this pie chart, you can see where your money is going after each pay cheque that you receive. You can see how much of your income is actually going into your savings.
**Tip: By putting more money in your RRSP/Pension, you can reduce the amount of taxes that you pay. **
Recommendations
The last and final graph is a bit of recommendations, based on your unique situation.
Money Leftover is essential, but we don’t need a lot of it. Money leftover is the amount of money that you have after all the taxes, expenses, and savings. It should only be used for your emergency fund or for leisure expenditure (ex. like buying a TV).
That’s why your money leftover should only be about 10-15% of your total income. If your money leftover is greater than 15% you are losing the benefits of investing your money or you are spending on unnecessary things. If your money leftover is less than 10%, than you might not have enough money-on-hand for emergencies and leisure spending.
(This may vary based on your income)
Conclusion
Overall, the monthly personal budget template will help you track your earnings, and expenses, so that you can figure out how much you can realistically save, which will help you create achievable financial goals. The monthly personal budget calculates everything for you, and gives you relevant and actionable recommendations that you can implement right away.
Feel free to give it a try if you haven’t yet.
