Time and time again I’m told by clients and friends that it doesn’t matter how much they earn they never seem to have enough money.  Sound familiar?

The problem with cash flow is that we know exactly how much we earn, either by payslip, or what appears in our bank account, and it is finite in other words what you see is what you get.  Where our cash flow comes unstuck is our spending.  For some of us it’s infinite, in other words we just spend and usually more than we earn.  How does this wondrous thing work you might ask - well for most of us it’s called credit.  Now let’s just get one thing straight at this point it’s not credit its DEBT.  Credit is good, debt is bad.  Every time we use our credit card we are going further into debt but of course we only use it in an emergency and we always pay the whole lot off at the end of the month - yeah right!  Some do, I must admit, but for the majority of us we juggle.  Why not take out your credit cards now and write the word DEBT in permanent marker on them so that every time you use them you know that unless you have a plan or dare I say it a “BUDGET” in place to pay the card off each month you are just adding to your DEBT.  By the way the record I have seen is 27 credit (DEBT) cards with $177,000 of DEBT for one lady.  Oh yes and before I forget did you recently receive your Group Certificate - and like the majority utter the usual standard phrase that most of us utter every year when we receive it - bl..dy h..ll where did that go?

Mmmmmm, beginning to understand the term cash flow now, simply put, money flows in - INCOME - (or in most of our cases, trickles) then the money flows out - EXPENDITURE - what you spend.  The sad thing here is we know what we earn but have no idea what we spend or where, in most cases.  Take heart, there is light at the end of the tunnel.  Let’s make is very simple.  Carry a small notebook with you and start recording everything you spend.  It doesn’t matter how little, a cup of coffee, paper, but write it down.  This is not so that you can become a sado-masochist and beat yourself up or your partner for that matter but so that you can see where you spend your money and how much.  This recording is the first step in you controlling your finances rather than your finances controlling you.  Sounds easy, well try it, what do you have to lose or better still if it all sounds too hard then call ihatebudgets and get us to help you.