Debt….When I think of debt, I think of slavery. I think about being a slave to the lender. In slavery you do not have choices and if you owe $500/mon for your school loan, then you do not have freedom with that $500. The money already has the name of your lender on it before it even makes it into your account.
Most of us do not like the thought of a budget as it sounds restrictive, it feels like you lose freedom to spend money on what you want to spend money on. The irony of a budget is the freedom that is gained when you know where your money is going. We had a trash company at the office that was increasing the bill each year exponentially and had we not been tracking it, we would never had made the call to question it. Once we did, they cut the bill by 60% because we mentioned that we would be looking around. Another example was the ATT bill that increased by $30. The company had added a “benefit” without us knowing it. Our telephone bill is usually around $300, so a 10% increase could had been easily overlooked. Budgets help you monitor this.
Optometry practice budgets allow you to monitor your spending. When you monitor your spending then you catch incorrect bills or you see patterns of expense increases. This ultimately results in more money in your pockets. Not more patients to generate or more per patient that they need to spend during the visit. It is much easier to keep money then to try and generate more.
The numbers given in the pie chart are accepted norms within the profession of optometry.
