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Salt Lake City Homes & Condos: Budgeting
Everybody's situation is different. If you have some savings and are ready to start looking at Salt Lake City homes, remember that you should determine how much you're comfortable spending per month. To do this you may need to do a budget for where you are now and where you'll be after you bought your Salt Lake City home.
If you've just started saving, or haven't saved enough it may be time to budget, because the only way to save more is to either make more or spend less. If making more money is going to take a while and you don't want to get a second job, can you spend less and save more?The first step to spending less is to evaluate where the money is going. Create a budget and track it. s a list to help determine your budget:
INCOME:
- Total take home pay
- Child support/Alimony
- Pension/Social Security
- Disability/Other Insurance
- Interest/Dividends
- Other Income
Housing & Home:
- Rent/Mortgage
- Utilities (Gas, electric, water, phone, cel phone, internet, cable..)
- Groceries & household goods (cleaning supplies)
- Vehicle (Car payment, maintenance, fuel, insurance)
- Health/Disability/Life Insurance
- Home owners or renters insurance
- Credit Card payments
- Other Loan payments (Student, personal, boat…)
- Personal Care items (Shampoo, cosmetics,…)
- Household goods (hardware, lawn,…)
- Medical/Dental/Prescriptions
- Child Care
- Clothing
- Gear (Skis, bikes, boots,…)
- Entertainment
- Recreation
- Eating out
- Travel
- Education
- Charitable Donations
- Miscellaneous Expenses
To do this properly, document all you income and expenses and total up each column. Review your check book register, bank statements, and credit card statements and track your spending by getting receipts. Do this for a couple months. Once you know where the money is going, it's easier to make adjustments.
It may seem like a big sacrifice, but remember, Salt Lake City homes & condos go up in value over time, and personal items like cars, clothes, toys and gear tend to go down in value over time.
Last thing, once you know how much you need to live on, put the rest in some type of savings or investment fund to keep it separated. If you leave it in your checking account, it's easier to spend. Also, watch your credit card balances. They should be going down, not up.
If your plan is to move from one home to another, just putting your home on the market isn’t enough. Your home will need to be ready to show and you’ll need a strategy to accomplish the sale and purchase of another home in a reasonable time frame.
With 10 years selling homes in metro Salt Lake and 20 years in the real estate business, I have many strategies and an in depth understanding of what it takes to help you sell and buy another home. Call or email me if you’d like to take advantage of this opportunity!
Contact SLCHomeBuyer and Kevin Coyle
