5 Tips on Planning for the big expenses
For those of us that have budgeting down to a fine art, you can still be caught off guard by an unexpected expense. Usually, by a one-off expenses. These are items that you should technically expect, but they tend to sneak up on many of us. After all, it can be hard to remember expenses that only pop up once a year, or even less.
So how do you work these costs into your budget, and what’s the best way to deal with them? Here are five steps to help you list and plan for these one-off expenses:
- Identify past expenses
You need to make sure that you know about all yearly costs. The easiest way to do this is to go back through last year’s budget, if you have one. If not go through your bank statements. They will be items you may have paid a yearly charge for, like insurance or maintenance costs that are needed every year and so on.
Looking through all those bank records will take time, but this is the most accurate way to find your one-off expenses.
Once you’ve written down each of last year’s items, do some digging to see if payments will remain the same or even rise for the coming year. These costs can then be added to your cashflow forecast in the relevant month. (continue to use last month’s cashflow template)
- Look at your plans for 2019
Don’t stop at simply looking through last year’s expenses, though. Think about what you are planning for 2019 and work backwards.
For example if you a planning a launch in June 2019 there will be additional cost that will be associated with this. These costs need to be included.
If you are having difficulty identify these additional costs – often imagining what you will need to do to organise the launch or activity will trigger off what you will need to purchase or put in place. You don’t need to go into too much detail now, however, a ball park figure for now will be fine.
- Timing
Once you have a list compiled and have put them in the relevant months, look at your sales income and your monthly outgoings that we looked at last week:
Highlight the months that you have a high cash balance and highlight the months that you are overdrawn.
Look at the months you are overdrawn – can you push out any of the payments.
Can you look at paying yearly insurance in monthly instalments?
Can you look at getting a short-term loan (do not use your credit card!)? – don’t panic at this, this is why we are planning so we can have options.
- Review all spending
Now that you have all your expected sales revenue and your expected expense (big and small) in, you need to look at them and see that each of your expenses in is line with your goals for 2019.
For example if you are renting a studio for your workshop or classes and this is not bringing in the desired profit or you have decided that it is not where you want to grow your business in 2019 – you need to look at how you are going to exit this area. Do you need to give notice on rental properties and if yes then how much notice? Factor this into your plan and make sure that you do not end up missing deadlines and paying more than you need.
Every single expense in your budget must be working you towards achieving your goals for 2019 and if they are not, you need to get rid of them.
5 Update and renew.
We know the future is unpredictable and changing all the time. The further out your forecast is the more likely it is to change.
With these changes you need to make sure that your cash forecast is updated with new information and revised on a weekly basis to stay relevant and be useful to you and your business.
Need Assistance?
With practice this can become very straightforward, however, if you are doing it for the very first time you know I’d love to help you. We both know running out of money and not being prepared financially is a very scary thing.
Join me for a 3-hour Masterclass in Dublin City Centre on 19th Nov where I will be going through step by step how to monetize your goals for 2019.
Get your tickets at:
Not in Dublin or can’t make it? Book at FREE 30-minute consultation #here# and we can discuss your Cash Flow Forecast.
Next week’s blog: 5 Steps to help you with Pricing
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