Mission Possible:Get a Budget

A quick Mission Possible catch up – the steps we have gone over so far are:

Get out of Debt , where we discussed the different approaches to getting out of debt.

Filling in the Black Holes, where is your money going? Corral that dough.

Invisible Savings, how to save without pain.

Now folks we are ready to roll our sleeves up and make a budget.  Perhaps some of you think we    should have made the budget first, but I think we need to get excited about the ways we can work our getting out of debt plan, then figure out where the heck our money is going by filling the black holes.  Then we are able to make a budget that can work for us.

There are lots and lots of free budget software available, you just have to find the one that you find the easiest to use.  I have trawled the internet to find you a few options. For my lovely UK readers, I have found Home Budget Planner by the Office of Fair Trading. The reason that I have found one specifically for the UK is a lot of our bills come quarterly, such as gas and electricity and it is easy to forget to put aside the funds monthly.

Microsoft has made a handy Excel worksheet called Personal Monthly Budget Worksheet, they also have a Family Budget Planner. Have a look at them then you tweak the one that looks the best to you.  I took info from different sources and made my own after analyzing my spending report from IxpenseIt.

You have to make your budget work for you; I get rid of anything that does not apply to my life such as car stuff (don’t have one) then add my own categories such as cat stuff ( have two).

After looking over my spending for a few months I have made some changes – I have a manicure habit that I have decided to keep and a social life I have decided to be more selective about.  It is all about balance.

Do you have any preferably free budgeting software you love to use?  I did not look into paid software or online budgeting websites because I am, not to have a better word – cheap.  I’d rather spend my pennies on a manicure.