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[F773]Free Personal Budget Planner

by Joe Goertz, Joe

There are plenty fancy ideas out there for personal budget planners. You can use them on your computer or on handheld devices. They sound like awesome little gadgets except it gives you the idea that owning one will mean you'll somehow have tons of extra money. Excel has one of those programs that let's you graph everything out or plot your progress on pie charts. While they seem fancy and look cool, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, as my grandmother used to say. In other words, if you don't have the money to spend, a fancy budget planner won't help you very much.

I don't think it's half as important if you have one of these things than it is to actually use one. Sometimes they're too complicated than they're really worth. I personally like the idea of a paper log book, a nice sharp pencil and maybe a calculator. I like the idea of seeing the numbers all work out for myself rather than having a computer do it all for me. The computerized budget planners are too abstract and it makes me nervous not to see the numbers right there.

I have a great brown leather bound budget planner. It's elegant and, for the most part, it's easy to use. But I've decided that's not my real problem when it comes to budgeting. The problem is my taking the time to make use of it. If I slack off, the numbers won't add up and nothing really makes sense. I remember when I was making a ton of money in one of those upstart Internet companies; I didn't think I needed to worry about budgeting. I was definitely living high off the hog, though, and I needed to find a way to get my finances in order. I made a few notations in my personal budget planner and, since I was making so much cash, it didn't take long to catch up and be more financially secure.

Well, as you may imagine, the dot com industry didn't last forever, so I took another position as a systems administrator. I wasn't making as much money and it wasn't a good time for me. I felt like I never had enough money. I thought maybe I wasn't using my budget planner correctly and the bills started stacking up. I lost more than a few nights' sleep, worrying about the whole thing. After a while, I realized that my personal budget planner was not at the root of my money problems at all. Rather, I simply wasn't making enough money to keep up with the lifestyle I really wanted to live.

So, I took action and got a second job to make up the difference. It was a boring job but it paid pretty well. I quickly found that my finances were much better and I'm back to doing it the way I once did.

The first thing that anyone should do when developing a personal budget is to determine his or her monthly income after taxes. When talking about the income you have after taxes we are talking about the money that you actually take home. This is the money that gets deposited into your checking account from your paycheck.

However, if you have a variable income it is best if you use an average of the last three months instead. The next thing you need to do is list your fixed monthly expenses such as rent or mortgage, car payment (if any), phone, electricity and any other utility bills that you may have. Although all of these numbers may not stay the same month after month you first need to determine a baseline budget of where you are at the present time.

What is important however is that you include all of your bills into this list including those that are paid quarterly, monthly or annually (such as car insurance).

What you need to do with these figures is calculate what they would be on a monthly basis, so say for example your water bill comes in each quarter then you need to divide this figure by 3.

Once you have worked out what your monthly income and expenses are you simply deduct one from the other. At the end of this you will be left with a variable amount of money that you are free to spend in any way you want for the rest of the month.

With this money you need to start listing what your main categories of changeable spending is going to be. In listing you will need to include your grocery shopping, any entertainment, medical expenses, clothing, drying cleaning, personal care (such as haircuts etc.) and any gifts/presents that you may need to buy. Once you have your list of changeable expenses you now need to put a figure beside each one as to what you think you are going to spend each month on them.

You will know that you have succeeded when developing a personal budget because once you have deduced both the fixed and changeable expenses from your monthly income that you have some money left over. Also by being able to see all the numbers in black and white in front you, it will help you too prioritize your spending better and know that you will not be short at the end of each month.

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Both Joe Goertz & Douglas Taylor are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Joe Goertz has sinced written about articles on various topics from Cruises, Home Management and Home Improvement. Read more from this author at: . Joe Goertz's top article generates over 40500 views. to your Favourites.

Douglas Taylor has sinced written about articles on various topics from Interest, Web Development and Interest. For more information on try visiting. Douglas Taylor's top article generates over 33100 views. to your Favourites.