3 Tips to Simplify Your Budget

One of the keys to managing to stay on top of your budget is to simplify your budget. Before you look into how to simplify it, make sure you are on track financially. This may mean that you should get a loan from Car Title Loans Woodland CA to boost your finances so you can start from a good point. By simplifying your budget you will be able to more easily see that you are sticking to your plan and can easily update it whenever necessary. There are many ways that you can simplify your budget, but here we will look at three.

1. Put Your Budget on a Spreadsheet or Use an Online Program

Instead of trying to budget on a piece of paper which can get confusing as your update it, put your budget information onto a spreadsheet or use an online program or app designed for a budget. This makes it simple to order information, categorize your spending and change any information you need to. You can easily make sure that your budget fits into the categories you want them to and can move items around or delete items as necessary. Work with the 60 Percent Solution which states that 60 percent should go to your monthly expenses, 10 percent towards your retirement, 10 percent into debt reduction or long term savings, 10 percent into short term savings for maintenance, gifts or unexpected expenses and 10 percent for entertainment.

2. Reduce the Categories of Your Budget

While it is a good idea to divide your budget into categories so you can easily keep track of everything and make sure that all your spending fits where it should for a secure and healthy budget, it is a good idea to keep these categories simple. Categories with multiple sub-categories can actually just get confusing. It also makes keeping on top of your budget much more time consuming and stressful. Sometimes, more is less and this is one of these cases.

3. Make Your Savings Automatic

Making your savings part of your budget will help you make sure that you actually save what you plan to. Having the money go into your account and then need to manually be shifted into your savings account, provides too much opportunity for it to be spent before it is saved. If your savings are automatically debited you can factor them into your budget for simplicity.

How to Save Money On Trade Shows as an Exhibitor

Trade show exhibits are considered the best marketing method to generate numerous leads in a short span of time. They are immensely popular with businesses because they provide you with the opportunity to develop relationships with potential clients, network with complementary businesses and to assess your competition directly.

It should be noted that exhibitions can be heavy on the pocket and if you consider the economic condition nowadays, it is important to make the most of every dollar that you spend. Therefore, it is essential to make your exhibition successful while practicing cost effectiveness. This will enable you to get the best Return on Investment (ROI) as possible.

In order to manage your money effectively, exhibitors need to be careful and should start well in advance before the exhibition and go on till they’ve addressed the last lead.

Plan Ahead

This is the most important step as you can only achieve the desired outcome if you start ahead of time. Your first priority should be to get all the paperwork submitted on time. This will enable you to avail the early bird discounts and if not that, you will at least avoid the exorbitant late fees. Planning early also entails booking the warehouse, reserving flight tickets and hotel rooms (if applicable) well in advance.

Another key advantage of planning ahead is that you may be able to select your booth space and this will enable you to select a good location that will enable you to get optimum traffic.

This will also enable you to select the size of the booth that you need. You can save significant amount of money if you choose a smaller booth as this will mean lower fees and lesser employees required to staff it. This will result in savings in term of airfare and hotel costs.

Giveaways

Giveaway items form a considerable portion of your expense. They can be extremely costly especially if you are personalizing large items. Therefore, it is important to choose your giveaways shrewdly. We can’t do without them because they are a major attraction and result in a huge amount of traffic to the booth. Therefore, you should take your time to shop around and find the best deal available. Buying in bulk may qualify you for discount and you should avail it if it is feasible for you.

Planning ahead is also beneficial in the case of giveaways. If you order them ahead of time, it will mean that they are shipped early and you can then ship them along with the rest of your trade show display items. This will considerably reduce expense in terms of shipping cost.

The preceding two ways can help you immensely in saving money on trade shows as an exhibitor. This can be vital in increasing your overall return on investment.

Eva is a specialist in Custom Gear Australia. She has helped many organisations with their promotional needs.