In a situation of economic tightness in which income has been reduced, limiting our ability to pay our obligations, the natural reaction is to keep spending to a minimum and make a payment schedule that allows us to survive until the situation improves.
In our short but rich experience we have noticed that the same techniques cannot be applied in payments and expenses.
Everything is summarized in the following principle: " The schedule of expenses must be planned based on existing resources, the payment schedule can be drawn up based on expected income."
That is, if we have a certain amount in the bank account, our spending schedule cannot exceed these this amount, so we will have to cut some expenses until there is availability to be able to do them. However, if we have to make payments to suppliers, loan payments, services, etc. We should consider paying as many of these as possible, including the estimated entries in the coming weeks or months.
This for two reasons:
1.- If we do not spend nothing happens, there will be no interest and we may have funds to respond to unforeseen events from which no one escapes, otherwise the debts that accumulate interest and damage our credibility.
2.-A payment schedule based on our future income, including those that have not materialized as unapproved quotes or unrealized sales, does not serve as motivation to put our creativity to work and stimulate our optimism even in the most adverse situations.
This payment and expense plan can be prepared in a very simple way:
a) Prepare a list of fixed expenses and accumulated debts and project them to the appropriate period of time (one month, one year, etc.). For example: expenses for fuel, food, payment of services such as telephone, electricity, loans, sales on credit. Add these amounts together and get a total amount.
b) Add the existing capital and the income expected for that period as payment of wages, bank interest, sales. This would be our "real ability to pay."
c) Subtract a) from b) and determine if we lack resources, if we are fair or we have too much.
We are generally lacking.
d) Verify which of the fixed expenses can be cut and do the exercise again until reaching the smallest deficit that we can have.
e) List the activities we can do to overcome this deficit in that period of time. For example: new sales, request for salary increase, sales of unnecessary items, sales specials at cost, new businesses in areas and products not yet explored. The idea at this point is to determine our "potential ability to pay."
f) We add b) and e), we subtract a) and this will give us a new number which we must try to make positive and increasing to have better possibilities of success.
g) We make a list of actions necessary to carry out this new plan.
The effectiveness of the spending and payment plan will depend on our religious adherence to it, avoiding distractions and keeping strict control of each action taken, vigilance of the dates established for each activity and sufficient flexibility to move the cards in case of eventualities. that will always be possible.
These recommendations are the result of experience, over time and with the new experiences that destiny has in store for us, we will be able to generate new techniques and we will always be open to learning in order to achieve our financial goals, which are nothing more than a tool to achieve more important are life goals.
