Essential Transactions

STEP 4: ENTER ‘ESSENTIAL’ TRANSACTIONS

You’re making great progress. Well done!

Now you have named and set up your 3 Accounts in the Spending Planner software it’s time to enter details of SOME of your basic Essential Expenses.

For now, please do not add any expenses other than those referred to in this step. You’ll get to add more later on.

The Essential Expenses I am referring to are listed at the top of a comprehensive ‘Transaction Worksheet’ I’ve prepared for you. To access this worksheet please choose one of the following two options…

Excel – CLICK HERE

Numbers – Coming Soon

Google Sheets (Open the link and then Save a Copy) – CLICK HERE

The first group of expenses in the Transaction Worksheet contains the list of Essential Expenses you will be focusing on in this step.

There are two accounts involved in this.

FFFI Account

You will enter amounts to be your weekly allocations for Food, Fuel, Fun and Incidental Expenses. The frequency will be Weekly, and you will need to choose a date within the next week for each, keeping in mind that if you take more than a week to set up your plan you may need to edit these before getting started.

Bills Account.

Your Essential Expenses list has already been loaded into your Bills Account.

You will enter the following details for these transactions into your Spending Planner account:-

  1. The Amount you would normally expect each expense to cost (I suggest you over-estimate your expenses a little to avoid being left short)
  2. The date each expense is due to occur next
  3. The frequency each expense falls due on

Please watch the video demonstrating how to enter transactions:- CLICK HERE

Once you have watched the video you can start entering your Essential Transactions into the software. Sign into your account at: www.spendingplanner.com.au

Keep in mind that the amounts you allocate for Food, Fuel, Fun and Incidentals can be moved up or down as needed as your plan starts to take shape so don’t get hung up on exactly how much to allocate at this stage. Just enter amounts that you think will work and we’ll fine tune as the plan comes together.

IMPORTANT:

If you have overdue bills and outstanding payments, or perhaps you owe money to family, friends, associates and such like, unless you have already negotiated a repayment plan (in which case the repayments can go into your transaction list), these should be listed in the section at the bottom of the Transaction Worksheets dedicated to overdue accounts.

At this stage we want to create a plan to pay for your normal living expenses looking into the future and then we will work out a plan to fix up the problems that are a hang-over from your past. In effect we want to see what a ‘clean slate’ looks like before we work out how to fix the hang-over from the past.

If you do have outstanding and overdue debts, once you have made your list you need to phone every person or institution you owe money to and ask what is the minimum they would accept as a repayment plan. This applies to your Credit Cards, Personal Loans, Outstanding Debts; everyone you owe money to, even if you are currently meeting the repayments.

All you need to say is this; “It’s xxxxx here and I am currently working on a plan for my finances. As part of that process I am looking at how quickly I can get my debts paid off. I may be in a position where I need to reduce the payment I make to you for a while. Is it possible that you could reduce the interest rate you are charging me and what is the minimum payment you can accept from me while I sort this out?”

I know this may seem like a daunting task, but you may be surprised at how much it will benefit you.

Please CLICK HERE to progress to step 5.

Warm regards
David Wright
Your Spending Planner