“You are the Master of Your Fate and the Captain of Your Soul” - William Ernest Henley
Your Personal Balance Sheet shows if you are financially healthy or you are stressed with debt. It is also a good benchmark if you intend to relieve your life from the burdens of debts and start investing.
Prerequisite to investing is saving. It is in your savings where you will get your seed money for your investing plans.
Most Filipinos claim, it is difficult to set aside small portion from their salaries to save. Their monthly salaries are just enough to support their monthly expenses, they often insist.
However, if you are determined to save, there are possible ways to set aside a portion of your income.
The most common way majority of Filipinos do is to spend first on the things they needed and try to save on the remaining amount from their income. They plan that remaining portion should go to their savings account. This method doesn’t materialize most of the time because at the end of the day, nothing was left from their monthly income to save.
The second method is to remove a portion of your income immediately after receiving your salary and put in into your savings account. The remainder will be spent for your monthly budget.
The second method is good, literally. It will force you put something in your savings account while spending within the means of the remaining amount for your family’s needs.
This method, however, do not solve the root cause of overspending. If you will focus on the reasons why you are spending more than your income, you will be in a stronger position not only to save but to manage entirely your family’s expenses for the better.
The best way to save is to understand first where you are spending your hard-earned money. It is convenient if you can create your own monthly income and expenses list in a spreadsheet form like MS Excel.
You can call this your Statement of Personal Income and Expenses or SPIE.
Your SPIE will help you analyze the way you spent your money. Having this information, you can now see if you are spending beyond your monthly income or not. You can also trim those unnecessary expenses and convert them into monthly savings.
For your convenience, you can download your SPIE Calculator at the bottom of this page. I have prepared this in MS Excel 97 to 2003 version so be sure you are using this version of MS Excel software or higher. (Please note that the figures I inputed in the SPIE calculator is for presentation purpose only. Kindly input the figures that suits your current condition.)
Let’s navigate the SPIE Calculator as I guide you through this step by step.
In the bottom of the main spreadsheet, you can see the different worksheets that you will be working on later for your own Statement of Personal Income and Expense.
The first worksheet is your SPIE Calculator. This is also your main page for this spreadsheet.
All the figures you will enter in the other worksheets shall automatically summarized in the SPIE worksheet. See Fig. 1 for your reference.
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| Fig. 1. SPIE Worksheet |
The second worksheet is your Income worksheet (See Fig 2 below).
Input your income in this worksheet and it will appear automatically in your SPIE worksheet.
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| Fig. 2. Income Worksheet |
The Expenses worksheets follow the Income worksheet.
Enter your different monthly expenses on the different expenses worksheets below. These were arranged into different categories for easier analysis later on.
- UTILITY EXPENSES – in this worksheet, input your average monthly utility bills like electricity, water, phone bills and other related services.
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| Fig. 3. Utility Expenses |
- MORTGAGE PAYMENTS – input in this worksheet your monthly mortgages payments for your home, car or other loans under mortgage.
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| Fig. 4. Mortgage Payments Worksheet |
- CREDIT CARD – input your average monthly credit card payments in this worksheet.
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| Fig. 5. Credit Card Payment Worksheet |
- CHILDREN’S EDUCATION – input in this worksheet your average monthly school expenses for your kids. The non-regular expenses were pro-rated into average monthly payments for easier computation.
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| Children's Education Expenses |
- GROCERIES AND FOOD – input your average monthly groceries and food expenses in this worksheet.
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| Fig. 7. Groceries and Food Expense Worksheet |
- CAR MAINTENANCE – input your average monthly car maintenance expenses in this worksheet.
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| Fig. 8. Car Maintenance Expenses Worksheet |
- TAX PAYMENTS – input your average tax payments in terms of monthly payments in this worksheet.
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| Fig. 9. Tax Payments Worksheet |
- INSURANCE – input your insurance payments in terms of average monthly payments in this worksheet.
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| Fig. 10. Insurance Payments Worksheet |
- OTHER EXPENSES – input your other expenses in this worksheet not covered by the previous expenses categories.
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| Fig. 11. Other Expenses Worksheet |
CONGRATULATIONS!
You have just completed your own Statement of Personal Income and Expenses.
Now, go to the SPIE worksheet and check your EQUITY.
A negative figure in your equity means you are living in debt and you will continue to bury yourself in debt not unless you will act immediately by reducing your expenses until you move into positive figure in your equity.
Check your different Expenses worksheets and analyze where you can realistically reduce more of your expenses. Once you were able to move to the positive figure in your equity, set your concrete action plans to execute and turn your SPIE into real life goal.
The SPIE Calculator is only your guide. The reality will be when you turn this plan into real life action.
A positive figure in your equity, means you have the capability of saving a portion of your hard-earned income.You are in a better position later on to invest as you add your equity into your savings account.
Analyze further your expenses worksheets and check where you can reduce more of your expenses realistically. Make a solid action plan and turn your equity into real savings on a monthly basis. Grow your savings account until you feel you are ready to invest in the different investment opportunities you are comfortable with.
Download your SPIE Calculator Here!