Zen of Job Search Living on Percentages.

I'm sure you have been told or heard of "Living within your means".

Download the Living on a Budget by Percentage workbook in Excel format click here.

When you download the workbook you'll see three (3) tabs in it. The first tab "Home Budget" is for those that have income and are looking to cut the waste or find out what it's going to take to save money. The "Home Budget Reverse" tab is for those unemployed that need to see what it's going to take to make ends meet. It takes your current expenses and offers you an income level you need to just get by in life or until something better comes along. The Electric Expense is something of a jewel when it comes to really watching out for your expenses. You can use the same tab to calculate natural gas as well. You'll find leaving your computer on 24/7 all month long may mean the difference of filling up the car with gas or just getting $10.00 worth.

We will all be posting examples and other workbooks that several hundred people use monthly that have been created by MnWorks Mentors. Planning for unemployment and surviving are key elements to finding your next job.

What does this really mean to me? I have credit according to the credit bureau. I have a nice home, car, furniture. My auto insurance is paid up. So what does living on percentages have to do with me?

One contractor in the Telecommunications industry was asked. "How can you live so cheaply?"

It wasn't actually living cheap but living within a percentage. When you look at your bank account and see the dollars going in and going out you really never fully understand just how much movement does happen until you run an audit on yourself.

But for a large number of people self audits aren't on the "To Do List" of things.

But, if you had planned for a rainy day you might have started setting aside a percentage of your cash to live on. Did you also budget from that cash you saved what expenses you will use it for?

It is very simple: If you make $100.00 per hour and save 40% you save $40.00 per hour.

If your home expenses cost $40.00 per hour to maintain then for every hour you work and every hour you save you have one hour of backup cash for that rainy unemployed day.

Do you see the direction I'm going in here?

Now, learn what you actually pay for and calculate the worth of that expense. Let's from this point forward not mention how much you make. We want to know how much you live on by percentage of your income.

The full article will be posted this week. We have more than enough data collected to show you just how to make your life a little better with our Budgeting by Percentages formula.

This article is a working point for many people. Please submit your questions so we can help find answers.

Download the "Living by Percentages" workbook. You will need to have excel. We are working on creating an online version for those using shared or public computers.