5 ways to control your personal finances as a humanitarian

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Delegate, simplify and automate - these approaches to financial control are suitable even for those who hate numbers and calculations.

Although economics is a liberal arts science, we, humanitarians, do not really like everything related to numbers and calculations. But this cannot go on throughout life. Humanitarians also "mature" and begin to think about the fact that money should be counted. Otherwise, instead of being creative and generating ideas, the brain will start looking for ways to save or borrow.

The habit of controlling personal finances - planning a budget, accounting for income and expenses - is difficult to form. First you need to overcome your own attitudes that do not allow you to engage in this mercantile occupation. Then - to find a way that will not annoy and take a lot of time.

If you are a humanitarian, perhaps among these tips you will find what you have been looking for.

Method 1. Delegate

If you have definitely decided for yourself that controlling personal finances is not an occupation for you, then simply delegate this task to another. Of course, this should not be the first person on the street. The method is suitable for family people.

For example, Maxim is a lawyer. He is a pure humanitarian and does not like to count. Fortunately, his wife Lena is an accountant. Therefore, he is fully responsible for family finances. Maxim just talks every evening about his expenses, and of his income too.

Or the journalist Marina. She has a son, Kolya, who is 15 years old. It is the son who deals with the accounting of finances. Mom sends Kolya voice messages via WhatsApp, and in the evening he listens to them and records all expenses.

Pros:

• You don't have to force yourself to do what you don't like.
• It becomes easier to plan and manage a family budget because all family members are involved in this work.

Minuses:

• Each family has its own unique way of accounting.
• You transmit information about expenses, but you do not form a habit of controlling your finances.

Method 2. Experiment

Suitable for those who can ask themselves a question, put forward a hypothesis, and then conduct their own experiment.

Experiment is the very thing that works best for the humanities. Because multivariance is our strong point. We are always interested to know "what will happen if …".

The key question of our experiment: "What happens if you write down your expenses every day for a month?"

Doubt you can last a whole month? Start with a week. In seven days, in any case, you will feel the changes. First, they will occur at the level of consciousness, and then they will become noticeable at the material level.

The beauty of an experiment is that you can continue it if you like the results, or end it if it doesn't work out. This is just an experiment, and not a concrete promise from now on and forever to plan a budget and take into account costs.

Pros:

• The experiment helps to take the first step, motivates for action.
• You will draw your own conclusions about whether you need to know how much money you have and how you spend it.

Minuses:

• As with any experiment, the result can be negative, be prepared for this.
• You will have to take the time to assess what is really going on and whether it is good for you.

Method 3. Simplify

If you have to divide expenses into 100,500 categories every day, hardly anyone can handle it. The main mistake of beginners is to come up with a separate category for each purchase.

Perhaps, out of pure curiosity, I would like to know that you drank 1,000 rubles worth of milk in a month. But what's the point? It is enough to know how much money is spent on food, utilities, household expenses, transport, medicine, education, clothing.

The simpler the accounting system, the faster it will become familiar. To control, you do not need to think through everything to the smallest detail. In fact, all the money needs to be divided into three parts: mandatory expenses, savings and optional expenses in a 50/20/30 ratio.

Pros:

• If the categories of expenses are general, they are easier to control and more difficult to get confused.
• You save time.

Minuses:

You will only have general information about the costs. Although this is not critical at all

Method 4. Automate

There are three ways to keep track of expenses: in a notebook, spreadsheet, or app. In the first two cases, you will have to enter all positions manually. That is, every day, open a notebook or file and write it down. If you miss one day, you won't notice how the week has passed. Then it can be difficult to find half an hour of time to record the expenses on checks and bank notices.

The problem is the same with most applications. They differ from notebooks and tables only in that beautiful graphs are created in them automatically. The principle of work remains the same: every day you have to enter numbers. You can exclude manual entry using applications that are synchronized with banks - you will only have to enter purchases paid in cash.

Automation will help with budgeting too. Based on the data for the last month, you can plan expenses for the next period in literally 15 minutes.

Pros:

• It takes less time to control finances.
• You don't have to think about recording expenses every day.

Minuses:

• There are no perfect applications.
• Installed app crashes can be very annoying.

Method 5. Share your experience

You can read many useful books about personal finance, but you never start planning and taking into account. Humanitarians are lucky in the sense that it is easier for us to tell and write about our experience, and in return receive motivation and advice from those who have already gone some part of the way, tried methods of financial control and can tell what is good and what is bad.

You need to take advantage of this. We decided to take into account finances from tomorrow - tell the world about it. Write what you plan to do and in what time frame. Describe your situation and the great future that you want to come to by forming a habit of controlling your finances.

I don't want to tell anyone - keep a diary. So you will see your progress and will be able to deal with the difficulties that will certainly arise in time.

Pros:

• Help others and feel better.
• Find like-minded people - support never hurts.

Minuses:

• Not all people are friendly, be ready for criticism.
• You need to take time to describe your experience, formulate a question, communicate with like-minded people and opponents.

Controlling personal finances is one of the good habits. If there is always not enough money, then there will be not enough time, energy, willpower to change the situation. As you develop this habit, praise yourself for your successes and reflect on your mistakes. Then you will definitely succeed.