First Things First
The first thing to do is get a piece of paper or program on the computer such as Microsoft Office. Your money needs to be split into different categories that will show where the money is being spent. You shouldn’t put anything in a miscellaneous category. Living payments such as rent or house payments should be a category. Electricity, water, cable, and other similar things should all be in the utilities category. Most kids will require their own category. Restaurants and groceries should be in two different categories under food. Two categories should be there for you and your spouse. There should be a category for car expenses and one for personal items. These categories will help show you where you are spending all your money which is helpful.
Next Thing
Go through and make sure you know what amount is going to go to bills that can’t be altered in any way. This is a place you might but things such as phone bills or rent. To help your budget you should make sure these rates are unchangeable. This will help you to know where to put your money. After creating the categories you will put in dollar amounts that you normally spend there. You will need to record your spending for a month to see where to put your money. It may shock you how much money is being spent in different areas.
Last Thing on the List
The Last thing you have to do is make sure the budget balances out with the amount of money you are going to be making. You might have to subtract from other funds. At the end of each month there should be some extra money to put into savings. The hardest part is actually sticking to the budget but is something that must be done. The budget may show you that you can’t go out to eat anymore, and you must then stop going out. The money you will save by disciplining yourself into not spending more money than necessary will be worth it.
My experience
When I was in college, I struggled just like everyone else. I didn’t know how I could possible pay for everything. I managed to pay everything I needed to such as tuition, books, rent, the electric bill, insurance for the car and health, and even the phone bill. There seemed like there was no way for us to be able to budget all of those things out and still try and still have enough left over for food and personal products. I decided that I was going go through and budget out as little money as possible to these areas in order to have enough money for all of them. I looked and found a new program to try. my family learned to love this program. I figured out how to take my budget and make it work so I could pay all of the bills. This program is still used in my family.
