My dad will always say to us that the last thing he wants to do is get involved in something he knows he can't handle financially. He always told us that whenever we were pressuring him to sign us up for something that is expensive and might require continuous payment of fees.
He has always been a man who plans ahead and that is why almost every penny is always accounted for. I said "almost" because none of us can see the future and there are some unforseen expenses that might come up every now and then.
Anyways, when it comes to budgeting, I think its safe to say I learnt everything about it from my dad because the man is a living proof that if you have a proper budget based on your income, then you will never find yourself in a spot where you are completely broke to the extent where you have to go take a loan from someone or buy something in credit to pay later.
So when it comes to budgeting, there are about two main things I consider first before making my budget. The first thing and the most important thing is my income, how much am I making?
Knowing this will so much help because then I can determine the kind of expenses I can make, what's too much for me and what isn't. This part can be a bit tricky for some people like entrepreneurs or freelancers, you know people who don't have a specific amount of income like salary earners. A good example is me, I do a lot of freelance work whenever it comes my way and some months are good, some are just manageable. I could make a certain amount this month and ten times of that the next month. So for people like us, it's a bit tricky, we have to be really careful.
The second thing I consider are my expenses. If you earn fifty thousand naira a month or below, you should be really careful with the kind of expenses you make because fifty thousand naira isn't a lot of money and not a lot money means that we have to cut down on unnecessary expenses. We just have to focus on the things we actually need and ignore those that are not relevant so that we can have some savings, just incase some emergency comes up and we have to spend.
Well those are the two main things I consider when making my budget because to me they're the most important and they've been working for me since forever.
So yeah, there we have it.