By Navin Siddiqui

We have been tricked into thinking that money is complicated and too sophisticated for the average person to manage. That you need a board of financial gurus to tell you what to do with your spending and that if you don’t have an elaborate spreadsheet model you are not taking care of “business”.

What is Money anyway?
Let’s get past all of our pre-conceived and pre-conditioned notions about money and just for a moment bring it back to its actual form and purpose. It is a medium of exchange for products and services. That’s it! Almost every transaction that takes place with money is a result of an exchange for a product or service.

Why do some of us have such a hard time managing money?
This is not going to come as a shock at all, but the reason why some of us have difficulty managing money is not because we don’t know how to do it, it’s because we don’t do what we know we should. It’s like “being on a diet” but eating pizza, and then wondering why we haven’t lost any weight. Some of us are waiting for that secret formula, software, method, idea that will help us manage our money, but it just doesn’t exist!

5 Tips to manage your money, that everyone and their grandmother knows.

1. Spend what you have, not what you don’t:
It is really easy now to spend money that isn’t ours. So much so, that it feels like it is our money when in fact, credit cards, line of credits and other such forms of payment are just loans with the bank. Basic rule of thumb is to spend money that you have and avoid dipping into these loan resources. And let’s face it, these options are interest bearing which makes it twice as bad.

2. Have more come in compared to what goes out:
Not rocket science is it? Ensure that your income is more than your expenses. Let’s say it isn’t, then you have one of two choices. Increase your income or decrease your expenses. We all seem to feel like our expenses cannot be decreased, but what we are really saying is that our expenses cannot be decreased within the lifestyle that we are leading. If it comes down to it, change your lifestyle because clearly you can’t keep up. It will be much better for you in the end, InshaAllah.

3. Keep track of everything and analyze regularly:
Make sure you have a budget that you follow every month and keep track of every penny going in and out of your financial system. Then at regular intervals, review this information to identify a few key things like, where is your money going, are there areas that are getting more money than they should, are there any bleeding points and how to control them, etc. Get to know your money like the back of your hand. Below is an example of how to prepare and keep track of your budget and collect the information that you will need during your review.

Figure 1.1: UnDebt Me Budget Tracker

4. Start an emergency fund:
Put regular deposits into a separate fund for emergency expenses. It is the most common advice anyone will give you but only a few of us actually take heed. Instead of buying warranties and insurance, which are not even permissible in principle, it is better to have an emergency fund to handle any and all expenses that jump at you by surprise.

5. Re-fuel/Re-invest and then start over:
Re-fuel can mean, deposit your next pay check, and re-invest can mean take some of your business profits and put it back into your business. Either way, re-start the cycle back to tip #1.  These principles are very generic and can apply to any situation with a financial purpose. Stick to it and there is no reason why you will be in debt or financial trouble. Never again will you need a financial guru to tell you anything because you will be in a much better relationship with your money, InshaAllah.

Happy Spending!

About the Author
Navin Siddiqui is the author of Eid On A Budget and the founder of UnDebt Me. Her passion is to reinforce within the Ummah, the prohibition of interest in Islam and the disadvantages of being in debt. She is aiming to help people get out of debt and live financially free lives.