Follow your Money to Reach Your Goals

Follow your Money to Reach Your Goals

By Ursula Menke
Commissioner, Financial Consumer Agency of Canada

Rodney Noriega finished university with a heavy debt load and carefree spending habits to go along with his business education.

Because the Coquitlam, B.C. resident studied accounting, he describes his financial situation as “ironic.” While he had learned to balance books in school, his skill at managing his own finances failed the grade. “I was not educated in terms of how to spend my money, how to make budgets and how to discipline myself,” he explained.

The resources offered by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) helped Rodney begin to turn his situation around. FCAC’s website offers information and tools designed to help consumers better understand financial topics, such as interest rates, credit card fees and mortgages.

Using the site’s budgeting worksheet, Rodney started recording his income and expenses. Soon, he was setting goals for reducing debt and building savings. Rodney’s story is featured in a video success story on FCAC’s website at fcac.gc.ca.

A new tool makes budgeting easy FCAC now offers an even more powerful tool to help people like Rodney take control of their personal finances. An interactive Budget Calculator lets Canadians see how much money they bring home and how they manage it.

It’s easy to use. Simply enter information about your income, savings and expenses. The calculator does the math to show you whether your numbers balance and what percentage of your income you have budgeted for different categories of expenses and savings. The results then become another tool you can use to determine where you can trim costs, and to make other key financial decisions.

Maybe the picture that emerges dashes your dream of going out to buy a home or take a cross-country trip this year—but the information can help you determine what changes you have to make to realize your goal and when you can comfortably achieve it.

The online calculator does not store information, which makes it suitable to use on public computers in schools and libraries. If you want to keep the information, you can download it to a hard drive or memory stick and save it as a spreadsheet or PDF. You can also view and print out information in a report complete with charts that illustrate where your money goes.

Budgeting puts you in control

Many people cringe at the thought of setting a budget because they think it will restrict them. Yet budgeting can actually make the job of reducing expenses and saving money much easier. Whether your goal is to reduce debt, hold on to more of your earnings, or stretch each dollar further, using the budget calculator can give you the information you need to reach your objective.

To use FCAC’s Budget Calculator and to learn more about the other tools, publications and tip sheets available on financial products and services, visit FCAC’s website at fcac.gc.ca.