Personal Budget Reflection

I have set a budget and am working on implementing the foundational elements into my daily routine. I have started to cut back on my expenses. By sitting down and figuring out my expenses, I have been able to ascertain that I spend too much on entertainment and dining out with my family and friends. This realization helped me to utilize all the information available to make the decision to cut back on these expenses. The money that I have been saving has helped me pay extra towards my balance. I hope that this will allow me to pay off my bills, thus allowing me to put more money into my savings and money market accounts. Immediately creating a small win for myself was important in keeping my motivation up, because it allowed me to witness how …show more content…
At this point I instituted some of the communication styles that can help to ignite a sense of urgency in myself and those that helped me make responsible financial decisions. It was my hope that my actions would inspire others into supporting my efforts instead of resisting them thus igniting the spark needed to make sticking to a budget a way of life instead of a good idea that should happen. In order to achieve the sense of urgency for myself I created a goal chart that I have sitting by my desk at home and work. The chart is relatively simple but it gets the job done. It is designed to simultaneously illustrate my current finical standing compared to my finical goals. While this chart is a bit embarrassing because of some debt, it constantly illustrates my current position contrast to my goals. This chart helps me to evaluate my spending in a more realistic manner, thus saving money on a daily basis. Moreover, I tried to use demonstrations to illustrate the need for a budget in my life. I tried to illustrate the need for a budget to a debt analyst, but do not feel like I successfully got my message across. I don 't think that I was able to convey the intended message in a way that they could understand because I was continually told that I was sitting in a neutral financial position. I did not agree with this interpretation of my finances because I knew that it was substantively higher than my income. At this point I felt the urgent desire to take dramatic action in order to get my message across to my family and friends. I decided to stop going out all together. I drastically cut back on all my spending especially in the dining out and entertainment categories. When I was extended an invitation to an outing, I graciously declined by saying I simply could not afford to spend the money at this time.