The main purpose of a budget is to determine how much money you have coming in and how much money is going out, and to where. For a budget to show the picture clearly, you need to gather financial statements, record your income sources, list your monthly expenses, categorize your expenditures, and make necessary calculations to suit your goals.
Creating a budget can be boring and tedious if you don’t enjoy collecting data and crunching numbers. Since the process requires a lot of calculations, you can make the task easier, faster and more accurate by using financial calculators.
Credit Counselling Services of Atlantic Canada has five different financial calculators to help you perform all your finance-related calculations efficiently. Each of these calculators is designed for a specific purpose, however, you can use any or all of them to assist you in creating a budget.
This calculator is designed to assist students in creating their budget while attending post-secondary education. It allows you to categorize expenses such as tuition, books and other school expenses, professional fees, groceries and living expenses. The budget automatically assumes the school year to be of eight months, starting from September and ending in April.
When creating a budget, it is very important to consider every penny you owe the bank or any other lender. This calculator lets you enter all your credit cards, lines of credits, loans, interest rates and payments. It helps you get a clear picture how much you owe and how long it will take to become debt-free.
If you have an existing mortgage or are planning to take one out, then this calculator will come in handy. Once you enter the mortgage amount, interest rate, amortization period and other relevant data, it generates an amortization schedule for your mortgage. It lets you see at a glance your principal balance and how much interest you will have to pay. If you are planning to make any additional payments, it shows you its impact on your mortgage, including the total savings you will be able to make on the interest. It also helps you state your mortgage loan clearly in your budget.
One of the main purposes of creating a budget is to save money by prioritizing important expenses. This calculator helps you do just that. Once you enter the number of years to save, your savings goal, the amount you have in current savings, savings per period, expected rate of return and the expected rate of inflation, it shows you graphically the current status of your saving and how far you are from your goal.
Line of Credit and Loan Payments Calculator:
Loans and repayments play a big part in every budget. This calculator lets you enter the loan amount, annual interest rate, term in months and other relevant data, and gives you a clear picture of your loan or line of credit payment.
If you need help with budgeting or getting out of debt, we can help. Our experienced credit counsellors work with you to come up with a debt repayment plan to works for you. Contact us today for a free consultation.
