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Health & Fitness

Budget Mondays 10/7/2013

Monday – 10/7/2013

It’s Monday – a painful day for most people, yours truly included. Sometimes it is made even more painful as we remember just how much money we ended up spending over the weekend.

Budget

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It’s one word that can make people cringe, angry and sad all at the same time, a rare occurrence indeed. There are plenty of reasons for this – people are told at work that their budgets are being cut, their ideas cannot be funded because they are not in the budget, and in our personal life, our budgets don’t usually quite match up to our desires.

I think everyone has heard the phrase “profit and loss statement,” its abbreviated form “the P&L,” or the “income statement.” Even if you do not work in the accounting or finance fields, the P&L is very important to your life, whether it is readily apparent or not. If your firm is a private company, the owners/managers check the P&L constantly, and are trying to judge if they are making enough money to keep everyone employed (which could include you). If, however, you are employed by a publicly-traded corporation, the focus on the P&L is even greater – management, investors, and market analysts all are constantly examining the P&L to judge the financial health of the business.

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But what about your own P&L?

If companies and professional managers are spending so much time on the P&L statements of business, shouldn’t you be spending at least some time on your own personal income statement? Putting your revenue (income) and costs (expenses) down on paper might be extremely illustrative, and help you to get a better understanding of where your money is going. But how to get started? Putting together your own personal P&L doesn’t have to be an expensive or tedious process. Microsoft Excel is built for jobs like this. A great place to start is with your weekly pay, and weekly expenses. Once you have those established, you can build it from there.

I have included some examples of templates and definitions of what exactly a P&L is, and if there are any questions or comments on how to get started, please feel free to contact me @ afreshpairofeyes88@gmail.com.

Happy Reading! 

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