Budget

While it sounds dull, its essential. So grab a coffee and lets budget! A budget will allow you to understand how much you have to invest, where your income is going and what you need to change.

So set up an excel spreadsheet/app/notepad with the following headings

Income (after tax) Less Expenses

Sample expenses include
💶 Mortgage or Rent (essential)
💶 Car or Transport (essential)
💶 Food (essential)
💶 Insurance (essential)
💶 Utilities (essential)
💶 Loans, CC, debt
💶 Pension
💶 Savings (including emergency fund)
💶 Leisure and Entertainment – subscriptions, memberships, trips out, tv, outings
💶 Other

Once you have paid your living EXPENSES, you should ideally then either have or be paying into an EMERGENCY FUND. An emergency fund is 3 to 6 months (ideally 12) savings which would be enough to cover expenses should you be out of work.

And then you would pay off debt such as your credit cards. If your credit card debt is high and you have stable earnings then try to pay the CC off as quickly as possible due to their impossibly high interest rates. We will discuss debt tomorrow. Thereafter you should be investing in a pension fund (for longer term goals) and a savings fund (for shorter term goals)

If your income is irregular, then budgeting is even more important. You would still pay off your day to day expenses first and then budget so that you have enough to pay your expenses in months where income is less.
One useful government site to get a budget template is the https://www.ccpc.ie/consumers/money-tools/budget-planner/

So get budgeting and let’s see how much you have left to invest.