How to Chart My Income
The key to charting income lies in charting both your income and your expenses. If you just chart your income, all you have is a graph showing how much money you made during a certain time period. But when you chart both income and expenses, you can then compare how much money you are making to how much money you are spending. And by using that information, you can make pivotal changes to your lifestyle to increase your overall bottom line.
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Instructions
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Calculate your income for each week or month of the year, depending on the time period you choose, by adding job earnings, gifts, student loans, grants and financial aid. Assume for as an example that you are using a time period of 12 months and that you earn $1,350 from your job each month. Assume also that you earned an extra $1,000 in January from a small business you ran.
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Determine your expenses for the period you chose by adding tuition and other school fees; rent, utilities, phone and other home expenses; car payments, gas expenditures and other transportation costs; grocery expenses, childcare expenses, clothing expenses, credit card payments and any additional payments. Assume you spent $600 in rent, $200 in bills and $400 in groceries every month of the year. Assume also that you put $2,000 down on a car in February.
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Build the foundation for a line graph by drawing a large L, labeling the left side in dollars and labeling the bottom side in months. Given the example, the bottom branch of the L would be labeled with tabs from January to December, while the left branch would be labeled with tabs from $0 to $2,000.
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Plot each corresponding income/expense combination. For instance, you made $2,350 and spent $1,200 in January, while you made $1,350 and spent $3,200 in February. Plot points for every month of the year.
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Connect related points with a line. All income points should be connected and all expense points should be connected. However, income points should not be connected to expense points. Examine the graph and notice indiscretions. For instance, you made much more than you spent in January, but you spent much more than you made in February. For the rest of the year, however, you made more than you spent.
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Tips & Warnings
Add savings and 403(k) lines to the graph to give it added dimension.
