How to set up a workable budget if computers aren't your thing
If computers are not your thing it can be difficult to follow any sort of budget. Most budgets are computer based now and can really make your life easier as they track and categorize your spending. With an electronic accounting program, like Quicken, you can print off exactly where you are at a second's notice, you can download your spending from your bank, etc. However, this is going to do you little good if you are just not computer savvy. So, what can you do, or how can you set up a budget that will work even if it is not on a computer. Try the following:
First, sit down and write out all of your expenses that are fixed. This would be things like your mortgage, your car payment, and other debts. Your phone bill if the same every month would go here, your internet, insurances, etc. Once you have all of your fixed expenses recorded, you will need to record all of your variable expenses. These are things like gas, groceries, entertainment. Now you need to look at your income, and what you should be spending on the variables to keep you living within your income, and to keep you from getting in debt. You should also set up some savings. You will want to put a certain amount of your check into your savings every month. You will probably want to put about 10% of your income into savings.
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Ok, now that you have your budget set, the amounts you should be spending each month on various items set, you will want to try and stick to it. This is very difficult. This is where computer programs come in really handy because you can plug in your spending, or upload it from your bank, and see exactly where you are, how much of your allotted spending you have left, etc. So, when you do not have a computer program, or are not able to use one with proficiency or ease, or just won't for this, you need a better solution. The solution is this:
Get a piece of paper. You can do this on your computer if you are comfortable. Make a graph with several rows, and about five columns.
At the top of the paper write what it is for. It could be your grocery budget, gas budget, entertainment budget, or bill tracking.
In the far right hand column you will want to record the amount of money you have for the month at the top. So, for example, let's say you have $200 a month for entertainment. This means eating out, renting movies, etc. Write $200 on the top of that column.
Title all of the other columns as follows: Date, Place, What, Amount.
Now, what you are going to do is each time you spend money in that category you are going to record it. You are going to write in the date of the purchase, where the items was purchased at, what was purchased (Groceries and diapers would be an example), then how much it cost. If you use several different credit cards, etc. you use, feel free to add another column titled method so you can write cash, check, visa, master card, etc.
The most important column is the one on the far right. After you record how much it cost you, you are then going to tally up how much you have left in your budget. Once that number reaches zero, or close to it, you will know that you can't spend any more in that area for the month.
This will take a few months to get the hang of, but having a dashboard to be able to see where you are each day, and a reminder of when you are overspending can really help you stick to your budget. This can all be done on paper, you do not need to do it on the computer to stick with a budget.
