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Publication #FCS7173

How to Make a Spending Plan: Step 7, Stick to Your Plan1

Nayda I. Torres and Josephine Turner2

You can create a new spending plan by modifying your current plan. If you can increase your income, add the amount to the income sheet in Step 4. If you can reduce your spending, subtract the amount from the expense sheets in Step 5. Compare the new total income and expenses. You will have to change your habits to reach your new goals.

Keep track of your income so you can save enough to pay your bills on time and to begin saving for your short- and long-term goals. If you do not have a savings or checking account, get one. If you can't, then put money for each expense into separate envelopes, a file box, or some other safe place. Take money out of the envelopes whenever you need to pay the bills.

Helpful Tips

  • Focus on your short- and long-term goals. If it helps you reach your goals, do it. If not, don't!

  • Get into the habit of keeping and organizing records.

  • Keep spending records simple.

  • Find a simple and effective recording and organizing system.

  • Take good care of yourself and your possessions.

  • Eliminate unnecessary expenses.

  • Fix or get rid of things that don't work right.

  • Don't buy it new, make it, or buy it used.

  • Buy in bulk. Share the costs with neighbors.

  • Set aside money for your bills and goals.

  • Pay your bills on time.

  • Stick with your plan one month at a time.

  • Review your plan every month.

  • Reward yourself by doing things that don't cost money.

Footnotes

1.

This document is FCS 7173, 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.