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Publication #FCS7171

How to Make a Spending Plan: Step 5, Compare Income and Expenses1

Nayda I. Torres and Josephine Turner2

Now that you have calculated your income and expenses in Steps 3 and 4, compare them.

If your total income is larger than your total expenses:

Table 1. 
(1)Total Income $
Minus -
(2)Total Expenses $

(3)Equals

 $

You can use the amount left to reach your short- and long-term goals.

If your total expenses are more than your total income:

Table 2. 
(1)Total Expenses $
Minus -
(2)Total Income $

(3)Equals

 $

It will be increasingly difficult to reach your short- and long-term goals if you continue to increase your total debt every month. Be careful and adjust your spending because you are overspending.

Whether you are saving money each month or going further into debt, you could probably manage your money even better than you are right now.

Footnotes

1.

This document is FCS 7171, one of a series of the Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida. First published: February 1997. Revised: August 2005. Please visit the EDIS Web site at http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu

2.

Written by Nayda I. Torres, Professor, Family and Consumer Economics and revised by Josephine Turner, CFP, Professor, Family and Consumer Economics, Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences, Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville FL 32611.

The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) is an Equal Opportunity Institution authorized to provide research, educational information and other services only to individuals and institutions that function with non-discrimination with respect to race, creed, color, religion, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, political opinions or affiliations. For more information on obtaining other extension publications, contact your county Cooperative Extension service.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Cooperative Extension Service, University of Florida, IFAS, Florida A. & M. University Cooperative Extension Program, and Boards of County Commissioners Cooperating. Millie Ferrer-Chancy, Interim Dean.