Realizations

This last two weeks has brought about a lot of realizations when I think back on this budgeting journey. Now we all are aware of our hourly wage and our paycheck dates, yet many of us don’t plan ahead. When we don’t plan the only thing we plan for is failure.

I had some unexpected bills come up, and had to adjust much of my plan for the month. This could have totally detoured me from this journey but instead I took it as an opportunity to rethink my budget and then move forward. I know that I am going to have many bumps in the road but the only way to accomplish what I would like to accomplish is to take it one day at a time. As I have been tracking my spending I do see that I am someone who really likes to have the opportunity to eat out. This doesn’t mean I indulge often, but I am aware that with a busy schedule there are times that hunger does strike and there is no other option. I didn’t previously plan for this in my budget but I would like to find a way to add this in next month.

Another ah-ha moment that I have had is that I use money from each of my paychecks this month to be able to pay for my rent on the first of next month. This makes for a little more creativity when it comes to my budget of each paycheck, but I would much rather plan ahead then use my entire first paycheck on only rent. I also can see that my two car payments do not land in convenient times of the month. I plan to call both banks and have the dates changed a little bit, but I am nervous because if one moves the date and the other one wont allow me to change dates. It will be even more difficult the dates they currently land. I have also been reading on calling all of my credit cards and seeing if there is a way to lower the interest rates. I have little hope that this is a possibility but it is worth a try.

As Muslims we aren’t ever supposed to go into debt or deal with riba (interest). There is so much wisdom in this, all of the debt I am in only causes hardship. This riba increases my bills monthly and the payments made towards it barely chips away the original debt. Some of my debt I have been paying on for more then 10 years. Now when I sit and think on that it makes me so angry that I have been throwing money away for so many years. I have a plan now to get out from under this debt and to not create any new debt. I don’t believe in throwing every extra dollar to debt without creating a little savings. The reason I have what feels like so much debt now, is because every time I would start to make progress something would happen. This would usually require a lot of money I didn’t have. I now believe it is important to do both save and work towards paying off debt. We never know what life is going to throw at us. If we don’t have any savings set aside the only option we have to take care of that issue is to open a line of credit and get more debt.

I realize that our lives on Earth will never be consistent there will always be changes happening. So something as essential as a budget really needs to be fluid. This fluidity is not to be mistaken as something we don’t stick too, but more so fluid so that when something comes up we can cope and adjust where needed. I also have realized we usually budget at the beginning of the month on the amount of what we are anticipating as income. It is important to plan ahead for the month, but also equally important to look at this daily to see if what you were planning for turned out how you anticipated. Did you cost you more, or less then what you planned?

Budgeting is just the beginning of so many things. I have just started this journey but I look forward to inspiring others to start. This month is really just me trying to implement something and create a baseline for the future to build on. I challenge all of you to seriously sit down and start a budget and a plan. The only way to begin is to be honest and track all of your spending for the entire month.

Looking forward to this journey with all of you.

Asalamu Alaikum (Peace be upon you)