In today's economy getting your finances on track with a budget is becoming more and more important. But, as we all know, this is often easier said than done. We would like to present you with a series of articles that will help you start your own budget, by showing you which of your expenses you should put into a budget and how those expenses affect your month-to-month budget. After getting your expenses placed into your budget, it will allow you to see where you can cut expenses and where you should be spending more. In Part I of our budget planning tips, we would like to introduce you to how to start your budget.



The best place to start is simple! Just type “budget planning” into any search engine and the Internet with connect you with thousands of budget planning websites and tool kits. Some of them are free, some of them such as Quicken® can cost anywhere from $40.00 to $130.00 depending on what time of budgeting assistance you need. Some of the websites offer basic budgeting sheets that you can print out, while others may show you how to set up your own via Microsoft Excel®. Any way you choose to go about it, there is so many helpful tools out there to assist you in getting your budget on track.

Once you've selected what type of budget planning assistance you are going to need, then you need to start plugging your expenses into your budget. Most budgeting tools will have labeled places for your individual expenses, but it is always a good idea to have things such as your rent/mortgage payments, electric/water/phone/credit card statements, and the estimated amount you spend monthly on things like groceries, entertainment, gas and other expenses. By having these figures handy you will already be on track to getting the most out of your budget. As you are filling out your budget, if you come across something that you are unsure of you can do one or both of these suggestions. First, you can just figure high on the expense. It is always better to figure high, than to low, because figuring to low will hurt your budget while figuring high will help your budget. Secondly, for one month keep track of every receipt or log the amounts into a notebook that you spend on that certain expense. At the end of the month add it all up and you will have a rough estimate as to what you spend monthly on that certain expense, but it is suggested that even after you get this figure, you should still add a little more too it, in case you spend more than that a few months down the road.

Now that you have your budget planning tools and you have an idea of where to get started, the next several articles will go in depth about each type of monthly expense that you should come across. We hope to give you an idea in the next few articles about what you should include in each type and the average amount most people spend in that particular area. The goal of these articles is to help you get your budget back on track, and even help you figure out where all of your money might be going so that you can cut back and possible put that extra money towards a loan or credit card balance. Either way, in today's economy it is important that everyone have an idea of where their money is going.