Wonder why the New Year money always disappears so quickly? Well, this may be because you don’t plan to spend it carefully. Plan a budget (预算) and you will find you can stop your money from disappearing.

A budget is a plan to control where your money goes. Careful budget can help you save for the things you want, but can’t pay for right now.

Sounds useful? Look at the following before you start your budget:

1. Every week there are things we have to pay for, like school lunches and buses. There are also things we would like to spend money on — just for fun! All of these are weekly expenses (开销).

2. Since we can’t have money for everything, we have to make choices. We need to ask if we really need something or just want it. Needs are what you must have in order to live, like food and water. Wants are things you would like to have or do, but that you could live without, such as CDs and cartoons.

3. List what you must spend on needs — and if there is money left over, what you will save for the things you really want. This is called a budget.

4. If you don’t have enough money for what you need and want, you may have to give up one for the other.

Any budget will change. Keep an eye on yours. Maybe you wanted a cartoon book but now you want an MP3 instead. Your needs may change into wants, or your wants may change into needs.

When we are trying to get to any personal purpose (目标), one of the biggest problems is that we always put them off till tomorrow, or next week. Unluckily, tomorrow never gets here. If you want to finish a purpose, you have to start on it today. So what can you do to find the time for your personal purposes?

One purpose at a time.

Often the problem is that we try to take on too many purposes. We have a list of things we want to achieve, reading a book, learning French and many other difficult things. Maybe we are interested in them, but because of that, we never start. Instead, we can start with choosing one purpose at a time, because it’s difficult to keep the attention (注意力) and energy on too many purposes at once.

Make sure you really want it.

It’s not enough to say, “It would be nice to learn French” or “It would be cool to do yoga every morning”. It has to be something you really want. Ask yourself why you want to get to this purpose, and how much you want it. That’s important to do early on, or you won’t make time for it.

Keep it easy.

It’s important not to make your personal purpose too difficult. You don’t want to have a huge list of things to do in order to achieve your purpose. Instead, pay attention to a smaller purpose that will lead you to your bigger purpose.

Stay focused (集中的).

One of the most difficult things to achieve purposes is keeping your attention on that purpose. It’s easy to become crazy about something else, and when we lose focus, we suddenly stop making time for the purpose. Instead, find ways to keep the attention.

Title: 【小题1】 to Make the Time for Your Personal Purposes

I began to think about my future job at the age of fourteen. I was born into a family of teachers. My parents are both teachers and I like the job.

When I was a little girl, I often went to school with my mother. When my mother was in the class I watched her, and I wanted to be popular among（在……当中）pupils like her.

One day in the 9th grade, the head teacher asked me to give an English lesson to the 5th grade pupils because their English teacher caught a cold. When I entered the classroom, many pupils had been at their desks. I said “Good morning” and began the lesson.

I wanted the pupils to like English. We read, wrote, sang songs, asked questions and answered questions. Later, I gave English lessons several times and I was happy teaching the pupils. Now I know what I am going to do after leaving school. I want to be an English teacher. It’s a very interesting but difficult job. It’s interesting because I can work with pupils. It’s difficult because I have to teach them a foreign language.

To be a good teacher means to know a lot. Every day I improve my English by reading books, reading English newspapers, looking through magazines and speaking with English people.