Follow the six steps below to better understand your finances and set up a plan for the future.

If you would like to speak with someone directly, drop into an ASB branch near you and speak to one of our friendly Personal Bankers or call 0800 272 007. If you would prefer help outside ASB, call the Family Budgeting Services’ BudgetLine on 0508 283 438.

Making a plan

1. Where are you now?
The first step to getting your finances on track is to get a clear picture of where you are now. Do this by filling out our My Finances Form. This is like a snapshot of your finances which shows your income, your outgoings and your assets.

2. Where do you want to be?
Now that you can see where you are now, you need to set some goals for the future. You may have a goal to reduce your debt or to make sure you are living within your means each month. Keep these in mind when setting your budget in Step 5.

3. Where is your money going?
Now you need to write down where you are spending your money. This may highlight some areas where you can cut back.

If you have access to internet banking, most banks have an option to download your transactional data into Excel or a financial management application (like ASB's Track My Spending tool), which may make this process easier.

Alternatively, grab or print out your bank statements for a typical recent month and highlight all of your expenses, or keep a daily log of your spending in a notebook. Divide these expenses into broad categories.

Some of your spending is for necessities, like rent and electricity bills. Other categories may be non-essential, like eating out or buying new clothes and you may be able to make cutbacks here.

4. What to do if your expenses are higher than your income
If you find that you have more going out than coming in, you need to either increase your income or decrease your expenditure.

Ideas for increasing your income:

• Consider taking on a weekend or evening job
• Get a flatmate or host a student

Ideas for decreasing your expenditure:

• Crack down on all non-essential spending - go to our Money Saving Tips section for ideas for saving entertainment.
• Trim essential spending – go to our Money Saving Tips section for ideas for saving on food, power, and fees and charges. Consider Debt Consolidation if you have a number of high interest loans eg credit cards, hire purchase, as this can decrease the amount of interest you pay.
• Accommodation (rent or mortgage) is often a major chunk of essential spending. Look at ways to reduce your expenditure eg finding a cheaper flat, reducing your mortgage (see our Managing your mortgage section).

5. Set a budget
A budget is a plan to help you manage your money. It will show you how much money you expect to receive and how you plan to spend it.  So, select one of the budgeting tools below and get started.

Note: Make sure your budget is realistic. If it is too tight you won’t stick to it.

Online Budget Calculator
ASB customers can login to FastNet Classic and use the Budget Calculator under the My Money section to set their budget.

Offline Budget Calculator
Download this Excel Budget Spreadsheet to work on from your computer desktop.

The Sorted Website is a website, run by the Retirement Commission. It has great financial information and budget calculators.

6. Track your spending
The most important thing about having a budget is sticking to it. Keep track of your progress by printing out a weekly bank statement or writing your expenses in a book at the end of each day. Match your actual against your budget. If you are an ASB customer you can use the new Track My Spending tool to do this straight from FastNet Classic.

7. Organise your accounts
Remove the temptation to spend all of your income, by using a two account system.

To do this you need a regular day to day account (which your income gets paid into) and a separate bills account.

Figure out how much you need to set aside for bills each month, fortnight or week (however often you get paid), then transfer this money into you bills account after each payday. You can set this up as an automatic payment, this way you know there will always be money for bills when they come in.

If you find that the balance in your day-to-day account starts growing then think about opening a separate savings account to make regular transfers into.