How to stay focused on your budget to meet your life Objectives

We all do budgets of what we want to achieve in a year or some specific period, however staying focused on that budget can be difficult if not stressful. There are many reasons why keeping to a budget and achieving your personal goals can be difficult. It could be that the environment or the income level just do not allow you, however the ability to focus can determine the ability to achieve the end game.

Let us agree on the two types of budgets for you?

As a professional you are going to have the following two types of budgets (you must have these two at a minimum)

a) Operational Budget

This budget is generally a budget which has your daily expenses versus what you make. This means everything that you do daily, so think of it as your operations budget. This would typically have expenses such as rent, electricity, data, airtime, tv streaming, entertainment and much more.

Your typical income could be salary and other passive activities that bring you income.

b) Asset Acquisition Budget

Now your asset acquisition budget is your life goals budget. Am calling it your asset budget because everything that you are going to spend on in this budget must add value to you, which is what your assets would do. So, such things as certifications, cars, house, stands and more are part of the asset portfolio. What qualifies to be an asset portfolio? What qualifies is anything that creates security for future income or simply gives you peace of mind (the meaning of success differs to each one of us).

Your asset acquisition budget constitutes everything that you are going to spend on, its funding comes from your operational budget. That means everything that you need in your life in regard to income is something that is part of your 24 hour routine. If you are going to buy a car, the funding from that must be something that you do in your daily life even if it is exceptional, it might be a car loan however you still pay for that loan from your daily routine and income.

Stay Focused 1: Limit Your Time from Unnecessary Relationships, get the right Synergies

This is straight from my book "21 Ways to Save Money " as well as "Five Principles of Programmed Success ", however it is one of the most important aspects in focus. If you have the wrong relationships, you are going to spend time on sustaining relationships that detract you from the financial objectives that you have. Before you know it you’re spending money on 30 "friends" birthdays, or going to 4 holidays because you simply cannot say no to those relationships.

Choose who you are friends with and choose your networks carefully. You do not need to be friends with everyone that exists in your vicinity, there are times when just by spending time with them you are actually losing precious time for money objectives.

Stay Focused 2: Stop Window Shopping

This might seem like a strange one, however if you have decided on the life objective that you need then that's your focus. Get your money to the value of what you need. If you start window shopping for different things you will lose focus on what you really want. We all love bargains, however when making your life objectives you should have shopped around before so that you make your concrete decision.

Window shopping for more objectives when you have already started will quickly take your concentration away and introduce self-doubts. If you are in the wrong relationships as well self-doubt is easier to obtain as some people might belittle your life objectives.

?Stay Focused 3: Keep Track

I love templates and budget templates are the easiest to use to keep track of what you are up to.? Recently I made a template which includes the two types of budgets with the other budget (operational) feeding into the asset budget. Tracking your budgets and noting your actuals performance helps you to be more aware of what effort you have done and what you need to achieve.

Create Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for your budget and occasionally check to see if you are on target. When keeping track check for opportunities in your budget. Opportunities are areas that

• You can improve on
• Remove to make your budget more specific
• Add on so that you have extra

There is a whole lot more we can discuss on keeping track but the concept of it is that you must monitor your activities and tie them to your expected budget. Every budget line is related to the level of effort and energy that is needed to make the budget line function as it should.

Stay Focused 4: Don’t be available for everything

Now this may seem like it is making you anti-social, however if you want to achieve what you need to achieve then limit your availability to what is necessary. Remember “Availability results in Opportunity”, if you are available all the time, opportunity will be created for you to spend where you must not be spending. If it is in your budget invest in yourself as much as you can but watch your investment spending. Let your investment be part of your? “grand plan” to achieve personal objectives.

If you are part of a big family, you cannot go to every function that turns up, if you are part of a company don’t go to every seminar, if you are part of a community don’t be in every community initiative. Availability is an energy spend, so spend your energy wisely to avoid investing in too many things which have no return.

?In Summary

Your time as a professional is limited to very few years that you can make enough to sustain and achieve your personal goals. Some people get 10 years out of 40 in which they can get that opportunity to buy?a house (or the biggest goals), or some get 30/40 years to really make things work.

However every year that you are working is an opportunity to be achieving some personal goals.

Whatever time you have, every moment is an opportunity to make the best out of it. Set goals that you can really push towards. In our budget training we normally train that every income is equal to the effort, if the effort cannot be measure than the income is incidental.