Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew.
–Cicely Tyson
One of the cardinal rules about Mastering Money is that our income MUST be greater than our outgo. In simple words, spend less than you earn.
The way to initiate is to keep track of every cent that comes into or goes out of our life. There are many ways to do this, and so there is a method that will suit almost everyone:
Personally, I keep receipts of every purchase I make in my wallet. At the end of the day, when I come home, I transfer the receipts into a folder I have created for expenses for that month. For example, Expenses Nov 2006. For those items that I don’t get a receipt for, I write down the expense on a small slip of paper and put that in my wallet.
At the end of the month, I add up all expenses in the folder for that month, under the appropriate categories. Now I know exactly where my money is going. If I happen to spend too much money in one area, I will know immediately and can make necessary changes in money allocations for present and future months.
I have been doing this for years and it works incredibly well....