How To Very Simply Manage Monthly Expenses

Let's face it. Budgeting sucks. I am very good with my money, and always have something left over to put into savings and investments. But honestly, if I had to do a real budget I have to tell you I would most certainly fall flat on my face.

It's hard to make predictions, for example, as to what I will actually spend—or need for that matter—when it comes to food, clothes, gas for the cars, and even entertainment.

So, instead of actual budgeting, what I do instead is simply do a monthly "budget" of sorts. But there's a catch here. I also pay myself a salary based on the anticipated monthly expenses.

The first step is to know how much money you make, and have a general idea of how much money you will need to get your monthly expenses covered. Both fixed and fluctuating. Take some time to save up enough money to cover at least one month's worth of salary. This admittedly take a while depending on how much you have and what you can put away. But trust me, it is worth doing.

Here I will give you a real time example using one of my recent monthly salary/budgets just to help to illustrate what is going on here so that you can more easily apply the principles. So, first off I already have my salary saved and ready to be dispersed at the beginning of the month.

I now will write down all of my expenses, also having predetermined what my monthly spending allowance will be. This, for me, is generally a fixed number which has been arrived at based on some general knowledge of what my monthly spending on food, gas, clothes, leisure, and whatever else that is not generally a bill, looks like.

For me that number is $1,200 per month.

• Mortgage, $1,100
• Truck payment, $300
• Cable and Internet services, $189.00
• Cell phone, $67
• Water bill, $50
• Trash and sewer, $35
• Electric and gas, $103
• Spending, $1,200

From all of this I get a total of $3,149 which I will draw from whatever account I have used to generate my salary. Again, I will do this on the 1st of the month.

Now that my entire month is covered right down to spending, I will not and do not need my paychecks for anything as they come in. This is critical, because now you have to work on replenishing your salary for the next month.

As soon as you get your paychecks, don't worry so much about the amount of them, just put the entire paycheck into whatever account you are drawing salary from (hopefully it is a savings or investment account).

Ideally, if you've done things right you will at the very least put back all of the money you took for your salary. In a better scenario you have worked out your expenses well enough that you will put back more money than you drew.

If you find you are consistently matching your draw or putting back less, simply make some adjustments. Most likely your spending budget is also one of the larger parts of your monthly expenditures, so that might be the best place to start to look to make some of those adjustments.

Get out a separate pad of paper to keep track of your monthly spending. This makes this very easy to track. Keep your receipts and start subtracting every time you put gas in the car, buy groceries, eat out, or go to the movies.

Be careful to not overspend in any of the weeks before the next salary draw, especially in the first couple of weeks. Otherwise you may wind up in what I like to call the "end of the month crunch." That is, toward the end of the month as you start to run out of money you may find yourself cash strapped and may wind up resorting to using credit cards, taking out payday loans or title loans, or simply being stuck in the house not able to go anywhere or do anything.

That's a counterproductive situation as it will discourage you from wanting to continue to apply this process.

That's pretty much all there is to it. Again, ideally you are finding ways to increase your earnings and reduce your expenses so that as you go about this you are more often than not putting back more money than you are taking, which ultimately provides an opportunity to increase your income through wise saving and investing—goes into something I like call "income replacement," but that's for another day.

Bling And Yang Equals Bull Plop

Enter onto the democratic stage Mr. Andrew Yang, running for President of the United States, and marking himself as the next best thing to the current President Donald Trump. He is not a politician, but a serial entrepreneur. But fear not. We can see what happens when a non-politician becomes master of the White House. Of course I am a Donald Trump supporter, and it is no secret that I actually think when all is said and done, not only will Donald Trump easily slide into another four years as president, but he may go down in history as one of the best presidents we have ever had the privilege of knowing. I think he could easily stand along guys like Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. And hey, because I am a fair guy, let's not forget John F. Kennedy. Historically he was also not a bad president at all. Just because he happened to have had a "D" next to his name does not automatically, to my mind, disqualify him from having been an excellent occupier of the People's House.

I am simply saying that it does not matter anymore, as Trump has proven, that you have to have political credentials in order to be an effective president.

But let's be clear as well. Just because you are NOT a politician does not automatically mean you are qualified to BE a president.

As of right now I think it is important to note that I don't think Andrew Yang has a fleeting chance in Hell to ever see the interior walls of the White House. But let's set that aside for a moment because there is something about what he is wanting to do—what his primary offering is to the People—that I find interesting.

Ludicrous. But interesting.

This election cycle on the democratic side as a whole will essentially turn out be a referendum on socialism, or a variation of forms of it. This is literally a campaign that will be about capitalism vs. socialism.

Now, while there are a few guys (and gals) on the stage denouncing socialism and rightly stating that if this is all the democrats are going to run on, the election is already over—I agree with that sentiment, by the way—those voices are few and far between. Interestingly enough, right now for whatever it is worth, I don't think the current front runner, Joe Biden, is one of those voices calling for socialism. But that's for another day.

The fact is that among the current 20 or so contenders in the game, the platform of most of them is simply to give something away. Name your prize: free healthcare, free education, amnesty for illegal immigrants, free and open borders...you name it.

And lo and behold, who will all of this free stuff come from? Ah, there you have it again as always. The evil rich people and the greedy corporations they run.

Forget for a moment that it is simply a fact that not a single democrat will acknowledge that even if you confiscated every single dime of the rich you'd still not be able to cover the damages on any of these things, let alone pay for current spending or pay off any of the debt we have.

So ultimately, even if THEY don't want to admit it (the democrats) the regular folks are still going to have to cough up for the lion's share of anything that might be "free."

But back to Yang. He wants to give every single American $1,000 per month. Sort of an idea along the lines of this whole "universal income" a lot of (let's be frank) whacko's having been talking about for a couple of years now.

Isn't that simply a subsidy? I mean, essentially that's what it is, right? A subsidy. Why has the cost of healthcare risen the way it has? Why has college tuition risen the way it has? Why did the cost of houses rise so rapidly during the real estate bubble?

It's simple folks. Anytime someone knows there is extra money out there to be had, they are going to take it. 

If I own a house and my tenant tells me he just got a huge pay raise, wouldn't I probably consider at the next rental raise that perhaps that tenant might be able to afford to pay $10-$20-$30 a month more?

Probably. I know he's got the money and so I know he can afford to pay a little more. 

This is the way the entire world works. Why do you think we track things like median income in this country? And who do you think is paying attention to that? Everybody knows what people have to spend. The oil companies, the cable companies, the phone companies, the grocery stores and food manufacturers...everyone. And they also know about what percentage of income any of these things should be, and so they also now what they are "entitled" to. Or maybe not entitled to. But they certainly know what is reasonably attainable from your pocket to theirs.

Why do you think so many people tend to live paycheck to paycheck? I mean, yes, there is a large part of the population that is simply inept when it comes to how to manage money properly. I have spoken about this for years. But, it also happens to be in part because these companies largely know what's out there and available for the taking, and so they adjust their prices accordingly, and unless you are wise to that fact, you will be hard pressed to ever get ahead of that little game that is being played on you.

So, what happens when you suddenly come into an extra $1,000 per month? What happens when those companies know all too well that there is an extra $12,000 a year for each and every American over the age of 18 floating around? Or potentially an extra $24,000 per household now in those wallets?

They simply take it.

If there is extra money in each and every single American's pocket, all that is going to happen is that the cost of every single good or service we buy will go higher. It's just the way it works. It's part of what drives inflation in the natural order of the economy. When there is more money floating around and when people are making more money, the cost of good and services rise.

So what, Mr. Yang, would be the value in that $1,000? It would eventually simply wash itself out. Not to mention what it may also do to productivity. But that too is for another day. No one is actually going to come out ahead. That money will simply be drained from your wallet just like virtually every dollar is drained right now. You would eventually have nothing to show for it, and there would be no gain.

Now, you also have to consider that someone has to pay for all that free money. Because it's really not free of course. Taxpayers would have to pay something to pay for it ultimately. So not only would the cost of goods and services rise, but so would your taxes washing out even more of that money. And if productivity is reduced, that potentially means less income tax revenue coming into the government coffers as well. So it's really a double whammy. No one gets ahead.

Long and short here, it's just a dumb idea no matter how you look at it. Sure, the thought of an extra $12,000 a year sounds appealing. Heck, for a guy like me who does not live paycheck to paycheck and who also makes a pretty decent living, there is a lot of appeal since I know I can likely take that $1,000 per month, save it, invest it, and gain handily on it—I can essentially game it and would indeed come out ahead even considering my examples as to how it would likely be a wash anyway.

But that's part of the point too. You see, people not having money is not really about society dealing a bad hand to the masses. It's not about unfairness or corporate greed or even low wages. It's about people not taking the time to improve their wealth, or having the knowledge to improve it. It's about people not understanding the value of money or understanding what it's intrinsic value happens to be over its in-front-of-you value.

So what happens if everyone gets that $1,000 per month? The haves and the have nots will be exactly where they started before they got the money. Nothing will change. The poor will simply be $12,000 a year poorer because they will simply spend the money and the rich will simply be richer because rich people know what to do with it—or frankly don't need it.

Part of the thing to think about here is that nobody has ever gotten better off by getting free money. Food stamp and welfare recipients don't see their lives improved. All of those folks who get more than they paid back in taxes every year do not get ahead. People who live on social security checks alone are almost all poor.

I don't think Andrew Yang has a chance to win anything, and I doubt anyone with even half a brain would think this idea makes an ounce of sense. But we shall see. At the end of the day all we need to do in this country to open doors of opportunity is to create an economic environment where that is conducive. And the good news is that is exactly what we are doing. That is exactly what Trump is doing. Less regulation, better trade deals, lower taxes for citizens and corporations are all things that are fostering economic growth, higher stock market values, more consumer activity, and wage increases across the nation.

If you look at all of the numbers it is quite clear that everyone is benefiting from this new booming economy. Don't feel like you are one of the ones participating? Let's be clear about one other thing here. Your prosperity and your economic improvement is of course going to be proportionate. What if the growth in your personal wealth is 5%? That's great. But if I have more money than you do, of course my 5% is going to be worth more. Is the top 1% getting more bang for their buck? You bet they are. But they also have more skin in the game, and so it makes sense. Fair is everyone getting their fair share of their contribution.

At the end of the day, if we can keep this ship sailing ahead, none of us is going to need that extra $1,000 per month. If we keep this ship sailing, I bet we'll all see way more than that when all is said and done.

In other words, don't settle for a simple handout when the value of everything else happening right now, this very minute, has far more value. You take this money, you cast this vote for any of this free stuff, all you are doing is selling yourself short, and in the end all of us will lose.

Well, of us except for the government. When they get done with us, if they have their way, they will have the power to control every aspect of our lives because we will need them more than ever. Land of the free was not a motto for handouts. It was a motto for self-motivation and individual opportunity for happiness and prosperity. Never lose sight of that.