First Things First
The first thing to do is get a piece of paper or program on the computer such as Microsoft Office. Next you will be dividing your money into categories. Miscellaneous categories are bad for budgets. A living payment will need to be one of the categories. In one category should be thing like electricity and cable and should be labeled utilities. Your children need to have their own category. You should keep groceries and restaurants separate in the food category. Two categories should be there for you and your spouse. There should be a category for personal items like toilet paper and soap and even a category for car stuff. 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. Here you would want your phone bills and rent to be listed. Make sure they are at unchangeable rates in order to keep your budget intact. This will help you to see what money goes to which things. The categories will then need to have the amount placed in them that you normally spend on things. You should record your expenses for a month to figure out where your money is going. 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. This may mean subtracting from funds such as the personal ones. It is great to have extra money to save with at the end of the month. You must stick to the budget. Sometimes you may even need to stop going out to eat once the money is gone out of the budget. If you stop getting everything you want then you will be satisfied in the end.
My experience
When I was in college, I struggled just like everyone else. Everything seemed impossible to be able to afford to pay. I had to figure out how to pay all of my insurance and monthly bills which I managed. 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. So that I could pay for everything, I needed to budget as little money as possible to each category. I then started this new budget program. The program worked miracles in my life. My expenses were all paid for with a small amount of money. My budget is still dictated by this program.
