{"id":4662,"date":"2014-09-09T05:35:05","date_gmt":"2014-09-09T12:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging-prblog.paladinregistry.com\/blog\/?p=4662"},"modified":"2015-10-11T10:48:54","modified_gmt":"2015-10-11T17:48:54","slug":"need-budget-financial-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.paladinregistry.com\/blog\/investing\/need-budget-financial-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Do You Need a Budget AND a Financial Plan?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve spoke to a lot of people through the years and read quite a few articles that assume this point:\u00a0 you only need a budget AND a financial plan if you\u2019re wealthy.\u00a0 Nothing could be further from the truth.\u00a0 Practically everyone would benefit financially from having both of these helpful road maps in place.<\/p>\n

No matter your age, income, tax bracket, debt load, etc., having a budget forces you to pay attention to your cash flow \u2013 which helps avoid problems like bouncing checks, running out of money every month to pay bills, etc.\u00a0 If you\u2019re winging it instead of writing out your monthly budget or putting it into a spreadsheet, you\u2019re just flirting with disaster.\u00a0 Do yourself a favor and create a budget ASAP (or ask your qualified financial advisor to help you do it; if this \u201cadvisor\u201d scoffs at the idea, you probably need a new financial advisor \u2013 one who is a fiduciary, not a product-pushing salesperson<\/a>).<\/p>\n

I\u2019m serious \u2013 if you\u2019ve not made a budget for yourself yet, do it right now and then you may continue reading this article.<\/p>\n

Since you should have a budget in place now, creating a financial plan<\/a> sounds a bit more complex than making a budget.\u00a0 In reality, it doesn\u2019t need to be any more difficult than this:<\/p>\n