A Cash Flow Forecast (Chapter 2)
A cash flow forecast requires you to write, month by month your income, list your various costs and see where you end up by the end of the year.
It is important to track cash over a period of time, and create a cumulative total to ensure that you can ride the ups and downs of spending throughout the year staying in the positive.
In this worked example we can see that monthly costs are much higher in October to December in the run up to Christmas. But then lower in Feb/March (no council tax). The cumulative total builds through to June but then starts to fall as costs get higher.
A Cash Flow Forecast example.
Download this document yourself, go to my google drive where you will find it.
Create a Spending Diary (Chapter 3)
You can download my Excel spending diary template here if you want something that I use and have created. It is ever so simple, you just add the date, amount and what the spend was. I then categorise into different spending types, groceries, petrol, essential bills, household expenses, family entertainment, school costs, childcare etc. Take a look and have a go.
At the end of the month, or at the end of every week you can add up your spends and see in reality and with mindfulness what you are spending money on.
Create a Budget (Chapter 3)
Very simply put a budget compares your income and your expenses. The first key test of any budget is – Is my income is higher than my expenses? For most of my life my expenses were higher than my income, hence having credit card debt from the age of 18 through to 42.
You can download my budget tool with a worked example from my Google Drive.
Family Money Saving Chapter 7
I have created the ultimate money saving list for a brand new baby, with links to all products on Amazon. Find the list here on my Google Drive for you to print out/or start buying.
I have made it clear what is essential and what is nice to have, with money saving ideas. Here is an example of the pram and car seats.
Food Money Saving Chapter 8
My Meal Planner example (based on article I wrote for The Sun, July 2020)
Get your own copy from my Google drive here. Its got a weeks worth of ideas, plus you an use the template document to create you own ideas.
The example shows healthy ideas for a family of four for £9.90 each. All meals for one week. Here is am example of Sunday.
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