HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) – The official start to spring is upon us, and as the weather slowly warms up, for many families that means travel plans, outdoor activities and tackling projects around the house.
Brad Barnett, Director of financial aid and scholarships and Associate Vice President for access and enrollment management at James Madison University, said that his first piece of advice is to slow down, and make a plan.
“The first thing is, watch your emotions. The seasons changing bring an enormous amount of excitement …And sometimes that leads to a new enthusiasm for doing things and a new energy, which can dip deep into your pockets, if you’re not careful,” Barnett said. “A good place to start is to kind of get some sense of maybe what you spent last year, so if people are doing any form of budgeting and have records, they can certainly look back at those and see what they spent, and then look at what that might indicate they want to spend.”
Barnett later said clothing can be a big spending point with the change of season.
“You want new outfits, you want to throw away the old, cold winter stuff, and you don’t want to pull out the things you had in your closet last year. That brings out a new thing. There’s new excitement … I’m a golfer, as an example, not a lot of golfing I do when there’s snow on the ground. Once the snow goes off the ground, that excitement comes back to golf. So I have to watch what some of those expenditures.”
He said that when it comes to traveling and taking spring break trips, it can be very easy to blow the budget.
“We always talk about this process of zero based budgeting, which is not as complicated as it sounds, but it really applies to these exciting season changes of life as well, which is looking at how much income you have coming in for a particular month before the month starts, and then you sit down and you literally tell every dollar to do something. You know, if you have $5,000 coming in, you spend all $5,000 on paper before the month even begins … So if you really want to do some exciting spring adventures or travel, and you’re looking at your finances, you may have to say no to some things in order to say yes to that,” he said.
What about your spring home projects? Barnett said this is another easy trap people tend to fall into. He said there will be things such as yard work and outdoor projects that you will want to plan for, so that you may not have to worry about them during the fall and winter.
When looking ahead into spring, Barnett said being aware of your ‘financial cycle’ is crucial.
“Knowing what your cycle is and thinking through this really helps you plan better. There’s an old adage, which is, ‘How do you eat an elephant? Which is just one bite at a time.’ So, as you’re looking at your life and these seasonal changes, it’s important to look ahead at what are these expenses, that are going to happen during a particular time of the year that don’t happen every month, and a seasonal change in yard work is one of those big things,” he said.
Barnett recommends a method families can use to help them stay on track.
“If you know you’re going to have it, but it’s not a regular monthly expense, then the method to do this is add up the total of all of these things that happen at odd times during the year. Figure out what that number is … Then divide that by 12, and then just save that much money every single month in a separate savings account. And then when that expense comes around, you have the money to just do it while the rest of your budget stays intact,” he said.
Barnett emphasized the more you save, the more you’ll enjoy your spring season.
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