How to Make a Basic Monthly Budget

Having trouble paying your bills or controlling your spending? Budgeting will help!

Making a monthly budget will help you track your expenses, help you pay your bills and control your spending.

Things You'll Need

• Paper, pencil, calculator, a list of your expenses, and an idea of your post-tax monthly income.

Instructions

1. 

   Making a basic budget begins with what you earn. Find your monthly post-tax income. Most people have an idea of what they make, but they use their gross income as the basis for their budget. You can't spend money that will go towards tax, so don't even include it. If you have a job that doesn't have a guaranteed pay rate, look at your last three months earnings and get an average. If you have to "guesstimate", guess low. It is better to be pleasantly surprised with more money than you thought you would have to work with than trying to make ends meet with too little.

2. 

   List ALL your expenses that you have each month. A basic budget list will should include at least these following items:
   Housing - include rent or mortgage, insurance, and utilities in this group
   Food
   Automobile- payments, insurance, gas, and a little bit towards upkeep in this group
   Health insurance/ medical bills if applicable
   Debts- list each loan or credit card separately
   Entertainment/recreation -Gym fees, club fees, date nights
   Clothing -even if you're not a big shopper, put aside $10.00 per month for each person in your household
   Savings
   School/child care
   Miscellaneous- Maybe a gift fund for the occasional gifts or pet expenses if your a pet owner
   Investments
   Tithe or charitable giving

3. Total up your expenses and compare your income to your out go. If the expense list is higher than your income, you can either increase your income or decrease your expenses. HIdden expenses often come in the shape of eating out, impulse buying, and credit card purchases that cause your monthly payments to increase.

4. 

   Make a budget list: Now that you know what you have to spend and what your bills are, make a monthly list that has a column for the bill, the due date (so you pay on time and don't incur late fees!) and what you actually spent. After a few months of budgeting, you will be tracking your expenses and finding any problem areas where you need to decrease or control your spending better to live within your means. Hopefully, you're already on track, but having a budget list will help you improve your financial awareness, keep track of your bills and make life simpler.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't forget hidden expenses! Buying lunch out, the kids' music lessons, Rover's monthly flea medicine, all those things should be listed!

• Don't give up! Even if your bills and income are out of proportion, you can find ways to trim your expenses or increase your funds.

• Don't give up! Budgeting may be boring or challenging if you don't enjoy paperwork or money math, but try it for a few months before calling it quits.

• This is just friendly advice, I'm not the financial guru, just a financial aficiando.

• There are hundreds of books, websites, and articles on budgeting... get a bunch of advice, not just mine.