A Cure for Hiccups

Not all alleged cures for hiccups work. Different cures work for different people.
My cure is simply to drink water long enough to break the cycle of hiccups. That’s worked well for me for years.
The cure someone close to me uses is to get her head upside down and then drink some water from the far side of the cup… which I find rather ridiculous. I’m not sure if it works, and I refuse to try it.

When you need a cure for something you look for good advice and/or treatment – advice and/or treatment that is in your best interest. Results may be immediate, or they may take a while.

Sometimes a cure is needed for hiccups in your financial life. Some “treatments” that are in your best interest financially are: a budget, savings, insurance and planning for the future. Getting these things in place and producing good results takes time and effort, sometimes a lot of time and effort.

One of your first financial goals should be to spend less than you earn. That by itself prevents many problems. You have to know what money you have coming in and where it is going. Step 1 in achieving that goal is to have a budget.

How do you create a budget?

A simple way is to figure out how much money you spend, each week or month, and what you spend your money on. Have a notebook or a piece of paper for recording everything you spend money on each day. Track your daily spending for at least a month. Then continue tracking your spending to know if you are staying within budget.

Your spending log becomes the basis for creating your budget. Create categories based on where you spent money, then total up the money spent in each category. Divide those totals by the number of weeks or months over which you did your tracking and you will have the average amounts from which to set up your budget.

Budget categories can be anything you like and as broad or narrow as you like. Some suggestions: savings, food, gas, car expenses, house expenses, yard expenses, entertainment, gifts, charitable giving, utilities, mortgage/rent and retirement. You may want to set up a spreadsheet, or chart of some kind, to record where your money is going.

Once you have those monthly amounts you can begin working on living by your budget. Adjustments may be necessary, and that’s okay. That is the part that takes time and effort to get right.
Keep the goal in mind!