Does a Budget Tracker Really Help Your Bottom Line?

Does a Budget Tracker Really Help Your Bottom Line?

The way you play chess can shed light on how you manage your money. If you are a careful chess player and keep track of your moves, you might find a budgeting tracker a useful tool.

In chess, you have a set number of pieces. In order to win, you need to use each piece in the most efficient way that you can. Rather than randomly moving around the board, you need to plan your moves based on the pieces you have available and where they are in relation to your opponent’s pieces.

Similarly, when it comes to your monthly budget, you need to look at each dollar you have and use it most efficiently. If you don’t use what you have wisely, you may be left short before you get your next paycheck. If you don’t follow a budget, you won’t know where your money goes.

This is why a budget tracker is extremely helpful. It allows you to become organized and methodical with your spending. The best budget trackers help you monitor your expenses, categorize them, and break them down so that you can plan better where to spend your money.

Don’t let budgeting intimidate you

Sometimes people feel overwhelmed when they first start tracking their expenses. Watching the list of categories where you spend money grow as you go through the month can be quite intimidating. Don’t let this scare you. Once you know exactly where your money is going, you will have a better idea of what you could cut.

Budgeting is one of the most efficient ways to make the best use of your income, making sure you actually manage to save money at the end of the month. Get ahead and start working on your budget tracker today.

Click here to watch a two-minute video about how starting budgeting is like playing chess. It may make the idea of budgeting less overwhelming.

 

Douglas Goldstein, co-author of Rich As A King: How the Wisdom of Chess Can Make You a Grandmaster of Investing, is an avid chess fan, international investment advisor and Certified Financial Planner (CFP®), and tracks his monthly expenses!