Pricing A Plan

From TheBestCaseScenario

The whole idea of planning a budget isn't that hard. Since most of us do this as a hobby as well, we will factor in time and be breaking this down a little differently than normal.

Breaking down a budget consists of two things: your expenses (Money out) and your income (Money in.)

Now, rather than bore you to tears with Accounting 101, we are going to take the cliff notes approach here. So, get your pencil and your scratch paper, and lets begin, shall we?

1.List your expenses for your mod. This includes everything it takes to build your mod. In the design phase of things, you should have figured out what kind of materials and how much of them you will need. Expenses may include such things as Plexiglass, Paint, Drill press, Computer parts, etc.

 Example
  Paint = $50
  Sheet Metal = $40
  Bondo = $20
  Rotary tool = $50
  Total Expense = $160

2.Find/Figure out your monthly budget. Figure how much money is going to everything not related to your project, such as:

 Rent 
 MMORPG account 
 Wife
 Car payments 
 Fast Food 
 etc 

in 1 month. If a monthly scenario is too much to handle or is too vague, try weekly or bi-weekly approaches.

3.Determine your free time. Figure out how much time you have during a month when your able to work on mod. It helps to come up with a schedule of when your going to work on your mod so that you can finish it in a timely manner and it just doesn't collect dust on your workbench.

4.Determine your Monthly income. Be it an allowance or a six figure paycheck, determining your source of cash is a MUST KNOW for anything that requires cash.

When you finally figure all this out, you've got a bit more math to do. The simplest equation is put into effect:

(Monthly Income) - (Monthly Life/Business expenses) = Potential Budget.

If you find that you are in the negatives, you need to cut back on some expenses. Negatives in this area mean you cannot afford to make a mod at this time or with your current spending habits.

With your Potential Budget, you can look at your list of mod expenses and plan accordingly with your free time so you can figure out your mod expense purchasing schedule.

Creating a budget may be difficult at first, but it really helps out if your making an expensive mod.