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Financial Calculators |
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Budget Tools |
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| Helping you plan your future. An important part of managing your money is knowing where your money goes. Setting a budget will help you understand how much you need to meet obligation and how much you have left for discretionary spending. We have provided you with some useful tools to help you get started. We give you a brief explanation how to use them so follow the steps below and you will be on the way to controlling your future. If you have any questions, please contact a Farmers & Merchants State Bank Associate. STEP 1: The first step is to understand where your money is typically spent. The Budget Calculator uses some simple guidelines to help you project where your money should by basic categories.
STEP 2: To develop a budget you must determine where and how much you will be spending in various categories. We have available two types of worksheets to help you gather this information. If you have Microsoft Excel®, we have a spreadsheet that you can use to enter your information. You can enter your estimated expenditures in the budget column for each of the 12 months of the year. You can also edit the categories if you need a more accurate description. At the end of every month record your actual expenses in each of the categories. The spread sheet will calculate the difference between the budgeted and actual amounts. You may have noticed there are monthly tabs for each month of the year at the bottom of the spreadsheet. We have provided a 13th tab named 'Year-to-date totals' that automatically updates with the amounts entered each month throughout the year.
STEP 3: We have provided you with a holiday planning worksheet. It is designed to help you plan for various expenses when the holiday season is approaching. The worksheet is designed to be printed and filled out by hand. The file requires Adobe Acrobat Reader®. If you do not have Acrobat®, here is the link for a free download. This will take a few minutes to complete.
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