Hi friends,
On seeing this, you may pooh-pooh me. You may not have the patience even to read this. You may think, you have everything under your control and nothing will go out of your hand. The present generation has a good income but the cost of living is high. A planned life will make it successful.
People talk about transparency, accountability, right to information, etc. Without accounting, you do not know where you stand and it is difficult to go up in life. Here are some tips.
1. Laziness is the root cause of not writing accounts. You must have an inherent desire that you are paid for the job and the savings are your pay.
2. Slowly you become accustomed to it like other activities viz sleeping, bathing, eating, etc. Then you become an addict to it.
3. I am not computer savvy. I write manually. If you can develop accounting on the computer it is better and confidential.
4. To start with, buy a Chitta notebook [a half size] having Debit and Credit rulings containing 92 pages which will come for 2 to 3 years.
5. At the end of the day, both of you sit together and write all the day's expenses without any omission. This is called "daybook"
6. At the end of the month, on a rough paper, open different heads of account, according to your nature of spending, viz provisions, rice, milk, phone, veg, capital, etc and post every entry from "daybook" and find the total of each head of the account.
7. At the end of the notebook, open cols.for months horizontally and for heads of expenses vertically.
8. Post the total expenses in each head of the account in the respective month.
9. At the bottom, provide few lines for the income viz salary, rent, others, etc
10. The last line is for savings. Deduct the expense from income and post it against savings.
11. At the end of the year, total everything and find the total savings and investments made.
12. At the end of each month ANALYZE the expenses and assess where you have to control.
13. This analysis is most important otherwise there is no purpose of writing accounts.
14. If the savings are 50% of the income, it is good. If it is 60% it is very good.
15 Your income goes up regularly. If you control the expenses now and start saving, you will get better results.
16. If you think you can save later when the income is more, you will never succeed.
17. Please bear in mind housing, education, medical expenses for self and parents, and retired life while planning.
18. Every wasteful expense will look like genuine. BEWARE.
19. Husband and wife should have a good understanding and cooperate with each other. Otherwise, it is better not to write and leave it to God as the family is more important than money.
20. One may be carefree or careful in spending. If both are carefree, they can not write. If both are careful, they find pleasure in writing. If one is careful and the other is carefree, it is better the accounts are written by the careful and the other should cooperate.
21. In writing accounts, you should have a long perspective and wait for the results.
22. Expenses on clothing should be controlled. Each member should have only 5 to 6 sets. Purchases should be made once in 4 years as a replacement after giving the old to the poor. No spending on birthday, festivals, etc.
23. When both are employed, there is a tendency to eat out often. This should be controlled as it is not good for health and the purse. You may go out once in a month.
24. Going for movies should be restricted to once in a month or once in two months.
25. There is difference between invitation and information.You should respect only invitation. Unless both families have visited and dined together mutually in their respective houses, it is not invitation.[colleagues excluded]
26. Normally people say income minus expense is savings, For you, it should be income minus savings should be expense.
27. Last but not the least, don't be a miser, life is to be enjoyed.
I wish that this New Year 2026 will bring you good health, peace, prosperity and happiness.
