Giving Future You A Bit More Negotiation Ammo

<p>Jesse shares a trick for improving your Rule Two planning (Embrace Your True Expenses), and better prepare for the next unexpected expense.</p> <p> </p> <p>Jesse suggests pulling your last six months of bank statements, and quickly scanning them for large expenditures. Look at the number of digits, and flag the transactions that have a large number of digits (to you). This should only take a few minutes. Note the payee. This exercise is the first place to look when planning for future unexpected expenses. Did you get in a fender bender and end up with a $1,000 bill from the body shop? Did you hire a plumber to fix some leaking pipes in your basement? These are possible future expenses you can use Rule Two to plan for.</p> <p> </p> <p>Now, hopefully you won't be getting into fender benders on a regular basis! But that auto shop expense might trigger you to think about upcoming regular car maintenance that you haven't yet budgeted for. Likewise, owning a house means regular maintenance, so at some point you're probably going to call a plumber out again. Time to assign money in your budget and plan for that!</p> <p> </p> <p>This is a good, easy strategy for improving your Rule Two thinking, and put future you in a better financial position.</p> <p> </p> <p>Got a question for Jesse? Send him an email:</p> <p><a href="mailto:askjesse@ynab.com">askjesse@ynab.com</a></p> <p> </p> <p>Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at <a href= "http://www.youneedabudget.com/">www.youneedabudget.com</a></p>