Budget Budget Budget

[justagirlgettingby]

Try as I may..... I can never complete a budget!!! Does anyone have suggestions on a good software for creating a budget? or have created their own and would like to share? I just can't seem to get organized enough to put it all together. I get everything paid each month, but I have no idea what and where I am spending my $$$. Any advice is greatly appreciated !!!

[Loudmouth_Mormon]

I've used MS Money for over a decade now. Once I got over the hump of saving my receipts and entering them once or twice a week, it works very nicely.

LM

[Jbs2763]

poke around daveramsey.com im pretty sure you can find stuff there

[WANDERER]

It can help to record what you are already spending your money on. This is probably the starting point before getting a budget together. You're probably going to be very surprised how much a few costs here and there add up for just one week...calculate what you would pay on them in multiples over a month or a year and assess your spending habits. Begin to compile a list of regular ongoing bills and dates.

There are a couple of choices. You can download a budget spreadsheet or try some online budget calculators. Google: how to budget and there are a huge number of resources. Try the free downloadable spreadsheets and budget calculators. Keep it simple and work your way up to complexity. Dave Ramsay has a great site. Budgetting by percentages is something worth looking at.

I use a simple word document with a table divided up into fortnights for the year as I'm not an excel wizard and layered spreadsheets are a bit too much for me to work with. It works just fine : ) .

[Jbs2763]

write down all your expensese for the month, and your income for the month, budget what you need at the first of the month for everything, give every dollar a name, spend every dollar you make for the month before the month begins....

[Elgama]

I love Alvin Hall he is my favourite Money Guru and I spent a month doing the spend journal writing down every penny I spent made a huge difference.s

My accounting is usually done on the back of a bank statement I write down my incomings and then log them on a calender for when they get paid into the bank:
(I am in the UK)
Wages
Tax Credits
Child Benefit
Other

Then my bills and the amount
Tithe
Electricity
Rent
Council Tax
Debts (I will this July change this to savings)
Travel (we don't have a car right now)
TV Licence

Then I work out how much I can spend each month and take it out of the bank in cash. Being in the UK all my money comes out of the bank automatically,

-Charley

[Iggy]

One thing that I found that was very difficult at first was discerning between wants and needs.

When I first left my ex husband, my income was paltry and my expenses great. When I bought food, I had to choose between need and want. Did I really need that ice cream? Pie? Frozen Pizza, bakery bread? No to all of them, they all were Wants.

As I examined each item carefully before I put it in my cart, less and less Wants went into the cart and more and more needs did. I needed salt, yeast, flour and eggs. With all of that I could make the pizza crust and the bakery bread.

Then when it came to buying clothes,that was even harder. I had NO dresses or skirts. Buying dresses was good - but you can not mix and match them. So I bought skirts and blouses making sure that they were appropriate for Church. If they are good enough for church then they are perfect to wear out job hunting! I bought one skirt or a blouse each month. No matter what the price- just one a month!

I also went to the women in the Branch who wore modest clothing, and wore timeless lines and asked them to help me go clothes shopping. They were thrilled to help me and they were more than honest in telling me what looked good and what made my bum look huge

75% of my clothes came from Goodwill, St Vincent dePaul, Salvation Army and DI. The rest were from clearance sales at the retail stores.

The money I used to buy clothes with and to buy items for the house (shower curtain, real cheap pictures [from the Dollar Tree Store] etc), I got by cleaning homes on my days off. I had three houses I cleaned on a bi-monthly basis. After I paid tithing on it, that money was for my "Shopping" - clothes, knick knacks, music cds, paper, coloring things, etc.

[WillowTheWhisp]

I pay all my bills on a monthly basis from a bank account. I add them all up so I know how much will come out of the account each month then I make sure to pay more than that into the bank on a monthly basis. I have it all written down and balance it against the bank statement at the end of every month.

Then there are incidental expenses which only crop up once in a while, like the road tax and car insurance so I make sure we save enough each month to cover those (add up how much they come to and then divide by 12 for how much to save each month).

We set aside a specific amount to spend on food and transport each week and try not to exceed that. Any surplus goes into the 'slush fund' for odd weeks when we need extra.

I also set aside a sum for saving each month.

At the beginning of each month I work out and pay tithing on the previous month's income along with my fast offering.

It may sound complicated at first but I've been doing it like this for over 30 years and it works for me.

[a-train]

Deal in cash as much as possible.

-a-train

[justagirlgettingby]

Thank you for all the great advice !!!