Things You'll Need:
- A telephone
- Your bills
- A ledger
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Step 1
The first thing you should do is make an appointment for budget counseling. The YMCA offers free budget counseling. Call your local YMCA and ask to make an appointment with a budget counselor for a free session.
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Step 2
You will need to gather some things together. Hopefully you have been keeping a record of bills you've paid in the last 6 to 12 months. If you don't have them, it's okay, you can use your check register or receipts from bills paid.
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Step 3
Get as many of your past bills together and separate them by utility, mortgage, auto payment, insurance, etc. If you have the last twelve months or six months record of the bills you have paid, add each one together and then divide by the number of months you have added together. For example, take the last six months of telephone bills, add them together for a total. Then take the total and divide it by six. This will give you an average of the amount you are paying per month for the telephone. Do the same with each monthly bill you have.
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Step 4
It doesn't really matter if you don't have the bills themselves. You can do the same thing by using your check register or receipts from the payments you have made. Once you have an average of all of your monthly bills, write them down on a piece of paper to take with you when you go to your budget counseling appointment.
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Step 5
To be fully prepared for the counseling session, you should have your average monthly payments for all of your bills but you should also bring with you the average you pay for groceries too. You will also need to know your monthly income. Bring a notebook or a ledger with you to the budget counseling session. The counselor will help you look at ways you can save money, and talk to you about the things you can learn to live without in order to keep from going into debt.
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Step 6
After my divorce in 1995, I went to the YMCA for a meeting with a budget counselor. It is a free service they provide and was invaluable. The counselor helped me set up a budget system so that I could avoid getting behind in bills. It was a tremendous help and I still use the system today.
