How to learn money management?
I'm not sure if this is the right forum so excuse me if it's not.
Anyway, I'm trying to learn more about the concept of money as well as money management skills so I don't spend most of my money on my special interest - games, which includes but is not limited to import titles, however I don't really understand what I'm really dealing with nor do I know where to start learning.
I feel like I spend too much of my money on games, so far I have managed to reign it down to games that strongly interest me (which rules out half of all the niche releases), not get every limited edition which tend to cost more, as well as limited physical runs which have collectability and possible resale value even though I'll never open them. I also mostly game on the PS Vita, and I feel like I need to support the localisations for the "dying" system so I tend to buy around half of the newer physical releases at launch.
I did think about saving it up for something, but although I'd like to, I don't see the point as I have nothing to save up for, and I don't know what I could use as a motivator that I could realistically do. A holiday is one thing I'd like to do but I don't see the point going alone, nor am I quite ready for it.
I have no experience in budgeting either and although I was given a recommendation to do a spreadsheet, I keep forgetting to do it nor do I see the point when I have an online banking statement that does the same thing.
Could anybody flag me up to some resources, or at least some tips on how they learned to reign in spending their money on their special interest?
Thanks.
I'm thinking:
Aren't there certain games which have many aspects? Like you can play many things within one game? Think about that. Think about mastering all aspects of one game, instead of just one aspect of many games. That would certainly help you save money.
Also: You should make sure your refrigerator and pantries are fully-stocked for the week before you spend money on any games.
BirdInFlight
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Joined: 8 Jun 2013
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Any budget is based on knowing what your income or available money is, then figuring what your spending on essentials are -- these are obligatory outgoings such as food, rent, household bills, auto insurance for those that have these; anything at all that you HAVE to spend on which is not fun money or hobbies.
Figure out the math on both these numbers for a calendar month.
If your obligatory expenses total less than your incoming or available money, you're good to go for spending what's left over on whatever you want. However, that's where self-discipline comes in -- whatever that amount left over is, you have to hold yourself to not going over it, per month.
So for example, just taking some simple figures:
If your income, wherever it comes from (work, welfare, family allowance, doesn't matter), is lets just say, 800 per calendar month, and things you have to pay for in order just to survive (food for the month, rent or contribution to household bills, auto insurance, etc) totals 700 in a month, that means you have 100 left over that's available money for you to do what you want with -- put toward savings, spend on entertainment, spend on hobbies and interests and games.
But you have to stick to spending only that 100 per month on your interests. You have to keep knowing that if you go over that, you've just made things very hard on the part of your spending that is obligatory, such as being able to eat.
If it happens that you have no obligatory expenses (living with family, etc) but you have incoming money in the form of an allowance, but you're overspending that, again it's a matter of enforcing a discipline on yourself -- set yourself a limit based on a portion of your available incoming money, and stick to that.
In the end, budgeting comes down to not just doing the math and finding out what must be spent and what needs to be spent less on, and thus what's left available for games, but also sticking to the limits you need to impose on yourself. Hope that helps a little.
DemophobicKlingon
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Joined: 19 Jun 2016
Age: 29
Gender: Female
Posts: 388
Location: A place within a place in the Universe
I am learning about this and am getting better. It takes time to learn about these kinds of things. I tend to be frugal in some areas but then when I have gift money splurge on things that I want but I am getting better. When there is a budget it is good to take into consideration what is needed and what is wanted. It is good to write down how much money you have and what you want then what you need. It is also good to make sure there is money left over. It takes some work but with practice it will help. Different things work for different people.
_________________
All glory to the hypnotoad.
INTP 9w1-5w4-2w3 sp/so
El,
To add to what has already been put forth....I know on the surface you may think that your bank statement is good enough, but the nice thing about a spreadsheet is it allows you to calculate the information in a lot of different ways quickly. (percentages to see how much is being spent, easily total data, etc.) If you are more visually minded, spreadsheets allow you to turn blocks of data into different sorts of graphs with the click of a couple of buttons. The fact that there is always something "new", "better", "faster" to spend your money on adds to the challenge of managing money. For me I try to really ask myself, is this a WANT or a NEED and then go from there. Al the best and Kind Regards.
CockneyRebel
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Joined: 17 Jul 2004
Age: 50
Gender: Male
Posts: 117,804
Location: In my little Olympic World of peace and love
http://www.moneycrashers.com/how-to-make-a-budget/
This one looks pretty good.
I save money for retirement by having it taken out of my paycheck and put in a tax deferred retirement account--I won't have to start paying taxes on it until I start taking money out.
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