Budgeting Basics - Where does your money go?

This article is sponsored by www.YouNeedABudget.com

If you don't have a budget, get one today. Plan it out and put it into practice. A good start is to keep track of all your purchases. One easy way to do this is to keep all of your reciepts for one month. Create categories into which you can easily separate your reciepts such as: rent, utilities, phone, cable, food, entertainment etc. You can divide them up more if you wish. Then once you have an idea of where your money is going - you can decide were you can tighten up your finances. For example: if you notice that your cell phone bill is seriously out of control (because of talking over the amount of minutes you have) consider upgrading your plan to allow for more minutes or changing to a company that allows unlimited minutes. Keep a record of your total expenses, and income monthly, and review your purchases. Figure out an average for each category you spend money on. Your monthly income should be greater than your expenses or your headed to Brokeville on a Red Line Bus. There is a lot of budgeting software available most programs such as Microsoft Money and Quicken include budgeting tools. Get your finances under control. An excellent link to budgeting is here at www.CNNMoney.com
Another great site with a lot of information about budgeting is www.YouNeedABudget.com