{"id":1142,"date":"2026-07-26T22:19:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T19:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neta.ussl.app\/how-do-you-achieve-cash-flow-balance\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T22:19:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T19:19:07","slug":"how-do-you-achieve-cash-flow-balance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neta.ussl.app\/en\/how-do-you-achieve-cash-flow-balance\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do You Achieve Cash Flow Balance?"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may have heard the terms “balanced cash flow” or “positive cash flow,” and maybe it sounds like a foreign language to you. What exactly is cash flow? What does positive or negative cash flow mean? And how can you even control it? <\/p>\n

What Is Cash Flow?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Cash flow is the movement of money in and out of your bank account. In other words, how much money comes in versus how much goes out. If more money comes in than goes out, your cash flow is positive. If you spend more than comes in, your cash flow is negative. We look at cash flow in monthly time units. That is, we check how much came in and how much went out in a calendar month. Why? Because it’s not too long a time period, because most people receive their salary once a month, and bill payments also happen once a month. <\/p>\n

The Only Two Things You Control<\/strong><\/h2>\n

There are only two parameters in cash flow that you control: income and expenses. Income is hard to increase immediately, but you can make decisions about expenses starting today. When you start managing your money\u2014that’s where your real control over your life begins! <\/p>\n

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What’s the principle here?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Cash flow = income minus expenses. Increasing income – possible but takes time. Reducing expenses – you can start doing immediately! The way you manage income versus expenses – that’s your real control! How do you control cash flow? – keep reading <\/p>\n

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The Connection Between a Spending Plan and Cash Flow<\/strong><\/h2>\n

A spending plan (what’s called a “budget”) gives you a clear and realistic picture of how much it will actually cost you to live in the coming month. If you’ve built a detailed and good plan, you’ll know on the first day of the month whether it will end with positive or negative cash flow (meaning whether income will be higher than expenses). Working with a spending plan consists of two stages: <\/p>\n

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  1. Planning: Before the start of the month, sit down with a monthly planning template, go through all the categories, and make decisions\u2014how much do you plan to spend in each category?<\/li>\n
  2. Tracking: How will you know if you’re sticking to the plan? During the month, track what’s actually happening in real time. My clear recommendation is to use an external tool, an app that collects information about your expenses automatically or is entered by you directly, and reflects how much you’ve spent versus how much you budgeted. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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    Only with available information about your real-time status will you be able to answer the question “Can I afford this right now?” Working with a spending plan isn’t just a way to make sure you’re not in negative cash flow. It’s the monthly way to check if your money is going to the right places, relevant to your goals, your values, and the way you want your life to look. That’s exactly why, in financial coaching, we don’t treat a budget as an Excel exercise or a math problem. The numbers are just a reflection of something deeper. Of decisions, priorities, and habits. <\/p>\n

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    Step by step<\/strong><\/h2>\n
      \n
    1. First thing, check your cash flow\u2014check how much you bring in each month and from what sources, and how much and on what you spend each month.<\/li>\n
    2. Build an organized and detailed spending plan. You need a realistic picture of your expenses and income. <\/li>\n
    3. Check whether your month will end with positive cash flow (more income than expenses) or negative cash flow (more expenses than income), even before it starts.<\/li>\n
    4. Track your spending plan execution at least once a week, throughout the month.<\/li>\n
    5. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t see immediate improvement\u2014change takes time (about three months) and persistence!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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      What Does the Learning Process of Managing a Spending Plan Look Like?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

      Managing a spending plan almost never succeeds the first time. Take Dana and Amir, for example: <\/p>\n

      In the first month, they built a budget and felt great, but after two weeks they already exceeded the limit they set for themselves\u2014not to eat out. Along the way, they discovered they forgot to include in the plan they built several annual payments in significant amounts\u2014car insurance and a one-time payment to their daughter’s school. They were disappointed and felt that “it just doesn’t work for us.” <\/p>\n

      But they didn’t give up. In the second month, they analyzed what went wrong and paid more attention to categories like gifts, car maintenance, and subscriptions. They also started checking expenses in the tracking app once a week instead of once a month, and during the month they also consulted with me (Netta). That was the turning point<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

      In the third month, real change began. They noticed their spending habits before they exceeded the plan to an extent that didn’t allow correction. They started changing their actions in real time. For example\u2014they gave up Wolt orders in a certain week to avoid exceeding the budget and save money for the big grocery shopping at the end of the week. <\/p>\n

      And in the fourth month, something relaxed. The numbers started working out, and a sense of control replaced the stress. What really changed wasn’t the budget, but them.<\/strong> They learned to plan purchases in advance and buy more wisely. They learned to cook more economically and make conscious financial decisions, jointly and not impulsively. <\/p>\n

      This is the most important point when trying to achieve cash flow balance!<\/strong><\/p>\n

      It’s likely that it won’t happen instantly within a month, and more than that\u2014to progress you’ll need to learn to do things differently than you’ve done until now.<\/p>\n

      There’s a learning curve here, because every small change in the budget sheet reflects a deeper change in behavior, habits, and life skills. It takes time to learn to shop differently at the supermarket, it takes time to learn to cook or fix things yourself at home. So give yourself at least a few months before you get discouraged. Each month, try to “tackle” another category and add financial management skills to yourself. <\/p>\n

      A Good Plan Only Works If You Implement It<\/strong><\/h2>\n

      Even the best plan won’t change your financial situation if you don’t work according to it. Remember that it takes several months of practice until management feels natural and comfortable, and it’s okay if you don’t succeed immediately. And also\u2014managing a spending plan isn’t about perfection, but about awareness and adjustment. When your expenses start to reflect your values, and when your decisions move you toward your goals, that’s the moment you start moving forward in a focused way. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Who’s Afraid of the Word “Cash Flow”?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-close-debts-and-overdrafts"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neta.ussl.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neta.ussl.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neta.ussl.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neta.ussl.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neta.ussl.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/neta.ussl.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neta.ussl.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neta.ussl.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neta.ussl.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neta.ussl.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}