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Setting up a budget with a spreadsheet is very easy, and a great start, but I highly recommend getting a personal finance program like Microsoft Money or Mint. I have used MS Money for years and is my personal favorite. one feature I particularly like is being able to see a one year forecast of your accounts, this is a big help when you are trying to figure out how much to pay on a credit card bill, and your not thinking about the auto insurance bill that is due in 2 months in the future. Lots of people are getting away from doing their billing on computers and moving to mobile devices, there is a great free online program called mint.com with apps for all mobile devices. This program could easily be used for handling your entire budget and even goes further than that. In the beginning you may have to make some corrections to how it categorizes your transactions, but after that it works well. My only worry with programs like Mint is putting all of my information in one place. There is no account number information displayed, but it seems like a lot of information to be in just one place. I started using Mint for tracking my spend money, and I have to say I do like it a lot. I have also recently added my Credit Cards. It is a great tool to see everything very fast and at any time. |
Track Your Bills and Accounts |
You can keep it as simple as you like, or get crazy and track everything. Personal finance software is the best way to stay on top of your money. It takes away most suprises. After you use the software for one year and enter all of your yearly, quarterly, and monthly bills, you will know in advance at all times what bills are coming. It's a beautiful thing. This will become your check book also. If you do your bills on the software before you send out your payments, you will be able to see if there will be a problem. When you set up the software you are mostly concerned about any bank accounts you are depositing to. You can also track balances on credit cards and loans. If you are good with computers, go for it and track everything. But if not, at first you should be most concerned with is tracking your checking and savings accounts. The first thing you do when you get paid is to open the program and enter your deposits from your pay check into the various accounts. Then go online and check the balances to make sure they match. If they don't then make the nessesary changes to make them match in the program. Once this is done, then enter your due bills in the program. Next make sure that you have enough money to cover the bills, then go ahead and pay them. |