Archive for September, 2008
Do you think it is right New york state officials to raise taxes instead of budgeting?
Tabitha N asked:
In recent news New York state officials were addressing the issue of funding. Instead of finding a way to budget their funding they are looking to find more funding and even considering tax increases! That is not right! Why when they have billions of dollars funded through different resourses do they turn to a poverty stricken economy!
Caroyln Chamul
In recent news New York state officials were addressing the issue of funding. Instead of finding a way to budget their funding they are looking to find more funding and even considering tax increases! That is not right! Why when they have billions of dollars funded through different resourses do they turn to a poverty stricken economy!
Caroyln Chamul
What’s the best way to teach your child about budgeting, and saving their money for the future?
K8e asked:
Even if you as a parent can’t afford to put away as much as you would like, how can you instill the saving gene in your child? LOL…they’re gonna need it sooo much in the future and kids today just want everything…instant gratification. Your thoughts?
Arlen Rousey
Even if you as a parent can’t afford to put away as much as you would like, how can you instill the saving gene in your child? LOL…they’re gonna need it sooo much in the future and kids today just want everything…instant gratification. Your thoughts?
Arlen Rousey
Sample Budgets: Compare Yours!
Many people learn best by example; you may be one of them. The following sample household budgets are intended to show a couple of simple approaches to recording a budget. The important thing to realize about these is that there is no one right way to do a budget. Some people are afraid of not doing their budget the ‘right way’ or that if they make a mistake, there will be dire consequences. Nothing could be further from the truth – the only wrong way to do a budget is to not do one at all. Trying to create a budget and not getting it exactly right or accurate is far better and more useful than not trying at all. Creating a budget is an iterative process and there is no school teacher that is going to scold you and give you a bad grade if it’s not perfect. So, let’s dive right in and take a look at our first sample household budget.
Our first sample budget is for a single female, just out of college. We’ll call her Sara. Sara has a paid for, used car that she received as a graduation present, a new apartment for which she just signed a lease, two credit cards she got while in college, a full-time graphic artist job at a sign company, and a cat. She sits down with a pen and paper and carefully comes up with the following monthly budget:
Income: $984, every two weeks (take-home pay)
Expenses, per month…
Rent: $1050
Electricity: $100
Internet/TV: $79.53
Car, gas: $80 Car, oil $10
Car, repairs $100
Car, insurance $106.23
Acme Debt Card: $79
YouOus Card: $54
Fluffy (shots, food, etc.): $60
Groceries: $150
Sara decides to play it safe and figures her normal monthly income, for the purposes of her budget, as just two pay periods per month (even though two months out of the year she will get 3.): 984×2 = $1968 and then she subtracts her total estimated monthly expenses of: 1868.76. Whew! She has 99 bucks left over; just enough to go out a few times to happy hour with her friends and cover a couple of miscellaneous items (clothes?) that pop up. Her health insurance is automatically deducted from her paycheck, and she figures the two extra paychecks per year will help cover vacations or emergencies (shoes perhaps?) that may occur. Not too bad. Let’s take a look at another budget example…
For our second sample budget, John and Carla are a married couple with two boys. John is a utility supervisor who takes home $1462 twice a month. Carla makes about $400/month selling hand-painted pottery online. John drives his work truck during the week and the family shares a minivan. Several years ago, they bought a small 3 bedroom house in a nice neighborhood and they have just one credit card they keep for emergencies. While John is at work, Carla works up the following in a spreadsheet on their home computer, by allocating all their funds to appropriate categories for their family:
Monthly
Our Income: $3324
Our Expenses:
Mortgage: $950
Utility company: $209
Internet: $49
Satellite TV: $49
Van payment: $320
Van (gas, oil, etc.): $140
Van Insurance: $127
Groceries, etc.: $500
Home repair fund: $100
Life Insurance: $79
Rainy Day Savings: $100
Clothes: $100
Boys’ college fund: $207
Entertainment: $114
Christmas and birthdays: $100
Investment: $100
Charity: $80
As a city employee, John receives excellent health benefits for the whole family, so Carla leaves medical expenses out of their budget. She has wisely allocated funds for emergencies, Christmas and birthdays, as well as long term investment in addition to what John is already contributing to his investment plan through work. John and Carla have also wisely avoided excessive debt – limiting their borrowing to just their house and vehicle. And they save considerable money by eating at home most of the time.
In both of these examples, our budgeters did what works for them. There is no one right or wrong way to create a budget. Getting bogged down by details can sometimes abort your budget before you finish. So, when starting out to create a budget, keep it simple. As you get better at estimating items in your budget, you can increase or further decrease the level of detail as you see fit after reviewing your actual spending from time to time. Your budget is a ‘best guess’ at what you think can work for your personal finances – a written goal that we strive towards, but don’t always expect to perfectly meet. Hopefully, these simple household budgets have illustrated that a good budget need be nothing more than a simple list of your income and expenses, catered to your unique financial situation.
By: Brad Homer
About the Author:
Our first sample budget is for a single female, just out of college. We’ll call her Sara. Sara has a paid for, used car that she received as a graduation present, a new apartment for which she just signed a lease, two credit cards she got while in college, a full-time graphic artist job at a sign company, and a cat. She sits down with a pen and paper and carefully comes up with the following monthly budget:
Income: $984, every two weeks (take-home pay)
Expenses, per month…
Rent: $1050
Electricity: $100
Internet/TV: $79.53
Car, gas: $80 Car, oil $10
Car, repairs $100
Car, insurance $106.23
Acme Debt Card: $79
YouOus Card: $54
Fluffy (shots, food, etc.): $60
Groceries: $150
Sara decides to play it safe and figures her normal monthly income, for the purposes of her budget, as just two pay periods per month (even though two months out of the year she will get 3.): 984×2 = $1968 and then she subtracts her total estimated monthly expenses of: 1868.76. Whew! She has 99 bucks left over; just enough to go out a few times to happy hour with her friends and cover a couple of miscellaneous items (clothes?) that pop up. Her health insurance is automatically deducted from her paycheck, and she figures the two extra paychecks per year will help cover vacations or emergencies (shoes perhaps?) that may occur. Not too bad. Let’s take a look at another budget example…
For our second sample budget, John and Carla are a married couple with two boys. John is a utility supervisor who takes home $1462 twice a month. Carla makes about $400/month selling hand-painted pottery online. John drives his work truck during the week and the family shares a minivan. Several years ago, they bought a small 3 bedroom house in a nice neighborhood and they have just one credit card they keep for emergencies. While John is at work, Carla works up the following in a spreadsheet on their home computer, by allocating all their funds to appropriate categories for their family:
Monthly
Our Income: $3324
Our Expenses:
Mortgage: $950
Utility company: $209
Internet: $49
Satellite TV: $49
Van payment: $320
Van (gas, oil, etc.): $140
Van Insurance: $127
Groceries, etc.: $500
Home repair fund: $100
Life Insurance: $79
Rainy Day Savings: $100
Clothes: $100
Boys’ college fund: $207
Entertainment: $114
Christmas and birthdays: $100
Investment: $100
Charity: $80
As a city employee, John receives excellent health benefits for the whole family, so Carla leaves medical expenses out of their budget. She has wisely allocated funds for emergencies, Christmas and birthdays, as well as long term investment in addition to what John is already contributing to his investment plan through work. John and Carla have also wisely avoided excessive debt – limiting their borrowing to just their house and vehicle. And they save considerable money by eating at home most of the time.
In both of these examples, our budgeters did what works for them. There is no one right or wrong way to create a budget. Getting bogged down by details can sometimes abort your budget before you finish. So, when starting out to create a budget, keep it simple. As you get better at estimating items in your budget, you can increase or further decrease the level of detail as you see fit after reviewing your actual spending from time to time. Your budget is a ‘best guess’ at what you think can work for your personal finances – a written goal that we strive towards, but don’t always expect to perfectly meet. Hopefully, these simple household budgets have illustrated that a good budget need be nothing more than a simple list of your income and expenses, catered to your unique financial situation.
By: Brad Homer
About the Author:
Brad Homer offers free-to-try home budgeting software, a free debt management wizard and more articles like these at his website.
Kelly
To Get Out of Debt You Need a Budget
To get out of debt you need a budget. Many people think that budgeting is just a waste of time. But without a budget you have no idea where your money is going. A budget will help you stretch your money and track all your spending. Budgeting is a useful tool that should be used in your household every month. You will be surprised how much you spend on things you really don’t need and even more surprised how much you can save if you set up a budget you can live with.
Make a list of all your expenses and don’t leave anything out include everything. List expenses like rent or mortgage payment, utility bills, car payments, insurance payments, entertainment, car repairs, credit cards and everything else you can think of. Decide how much money you are left with at the end of each month to pay towards your debt. Are you charging your purchases instead of paying in cash or debit card? How often do you use your credit card on those insignificant purchases when you could have just as easily used cash or even your debit card? This raises your balances and costs you more money in interest. Use cash, check, or a debit card and save yourself some money. To get out of debt you need a budget you can live with.
Unsecured debt like credit cards with high interest rates are the first things you need to concentrate on and pay off. The ones with the smallest balance are the ones you want to work on first. The reason you want start with the small ones first is because cards with small balances are the easiest to pay off and it gives you a sense of accomplishment. When you start to see the balances go to zero it helps you stick to the budget. Once the small ones are done then you work on the big ones. To get out of debt you need a budget that you can save a little money for unforeseen expenses that happen from time to time.
The best budget in the world won’t work if you can’t stay on it because it is too Restrictive. To get out of debt you need a budget that will be easy to follow. Live on less money than you make, control your wants and make a budget you can live with. It all can be accomplished with a little discipline and the desire that you can get rid of debt in less time than you think. It’s a great feeling when you can live free of debt. You can do it, you just need to get started and the rest will be easy.
By: William Onedge
About the Author:
Make a list of all your expenses and don’t leave anything out include everything. List expenses like rent or mortgage payment, utility bills, car payments, insurance payments, entertainment, car repairs, credit cards and everything else you can think of. Decide how much money you are left with at the end of each month to pay towards your debt. Are you charging your purchases instead of paying in cash or debit card? How often do you use your credit card on those insignificant purchases when you could have just as easily used cash or even your debit card? This raises your balances and costs you more money in interest. Use cash, check, or a debit card and save yourself some money. To get out of debt you need a budget you can live with.
Unsecured debt like credit cards with high interest rates are the first things you need to concentrate on and pay off. The ones with the smallest balance are the ones you want to work on first. The reason you want start with the small ones first is because cards with small balances are the easiest to pay off and it gives you a sense of accomplishment. When you start to see the balances go to zero it helps you stick to the budget. Once the small ones are done then you work on the big ones. To get out of debt you need a budget that you can save a little money for unforeseen expenses that happen from time to time.
The best budget in the world won’t work if you can’t stay on it because it is too Restrictive. To get out of debt you need a budget that will be easy to follow. Live on less money than you make, control your wants and make a budget you can live with. It all can be accomplished with a little discipline and the desire that you can get rid of debt in less time than you think. It’s a great feeling when you can live free of debt. You can do it, you just need to get started and the rest will be easy.
By: William Onedge
About the Author:
We have many budget plans, systems and lots of free advice on how to become Debt Free. For more Info go to http://www.4debtfreelife.com
Hans Tanenbaum
Personal Budget Software
We used to say that there was never enough money at the end of each month. Now it seems like there is never enough money by the middle of the week. I am embarassed to tell you how much my wife and I paid last year in bank fees.
So like I am making our 2009 New Years resolution to put family on a budget. In the past have tried using Microsoft Money, Quicken and GNU Cash. All of them are very good at keeping track of the money you spent but they all are pretty lousy at budgeting. So I did a few internet searches and found peronal budget software called "You Need a Budget". It looks very promising.
The goal of the software is to get you to budget and pay for next months bills using the previous months income. That way your income is always amonth ahead and paying bills and planning for your future becomes easier.
Personal Budget Software
Last week I purchased the software, imported our checking account transactions, reconciled our accounts and clicked on "budget". The software creates a pretty good looking report of your budgeted and actual expenses. I am looking forward to using it and hopefully soon we will put our finances on right track.
I also find that being held accountable for our spending is helping us to spend less. If we could just get a few weeks ahead we will get rid of those expensive bank fees. That is my first goal, with the extra money from that we should be able to get further ahead.
Personal Budget Software
By: Norman Moore
About the Author:
So like I am making our 2009 New Years resolution to put family on a budget. In the past have tried using Microsoft Money, Quicken and GNU Cash. All of them are very good at keeping track of the money you spent but they all are pretty lousy at budgeting. So I did a few internet searches and found peronal budget software called "You Need a Budget". It looks very promising.
The goal of the software is to get you to budget and pay for next months bills using the previous months income. That way your income is always amonth ahead and paying bills and planning for your future becomes easier.
Personal Budget Software
Last week I purchased the software, imported our checking account transactions, reconciled our accounts and clicked on "budget". The software creates a pretty good looking report of your budgeted and actual expenses. I am looking forward to using it and hopefully soon we will put our finances on right track.
I also find that being held accountable for our spending is helping us to spend less. If we could just get a few weeks ahead we will get rid of those expensive bank fees. That is my first goal, with the extra money from that we should be able to get further ahead.
Personal Budget Software
By: Norman Moore
About the Author:
Norman Moore
Where to get personal budget software
Arianna Fairey
For the people successful financially, what are your budgeting tips for those in the negative?
Gaga asked:
nothing better than advice/tips from people who’ve been through it and came out ahead on debt. thanks a bunch
Rebecca
nothing better than advice/tips from people who’ve been through it and came out ahead on debt. thanks a bunch
Rebecca
what is the difference between sales budgeting and financial budgeting?
Anonymous asked:
plz explain thouroughly if not give me a site where i can find this info
Jeremiah Walde
plz explain thouroughly if not give me a site where i can find this info
Jeremiah Walde
What are operating budget and performance budgeting? Where I can find info and definition?
Susy asked:
I want to know about the operating budget and performance budgeting in hospital or Emergency Department setting, including definition, examples, and explanations. Could you recommend some Web sites? Thanks a lot.
Collette Sylva
I want to know about the operating budget and performance budgeting in hospital or Emergency Department setting, including definition, examples, and explanations. Could you recommend some Web sites? Thanks a lot.
Collette Sylva
Top 10 Pantry Food Budget Basics – Nutrition by Natalie
psychetruth asked:
Be My Friend on MySpace http://www.myspace.com/psychtruth Top 10 Pantry Food Budget Basics – Nutrition by Natalie Originally, suggestions for college girl or guy stuck with a dorm room, these are nutrition basics for anyone on a budget. Please visit Natalie’s website at http://www.nutritionbynatalie.com This video was produced by psychetruth http://www.youtube.com/psychetruth http://www.myspace.com/psychtruth http://psychetruth.blogspot.com Psychetruth is empowered by TubeMogul http://www …
Wilbert Cofresi
Hans Zimmer – Budget Meeting
Mitenka asked:
Peut être ma piste preferé de l’ensemble de l’oeuvre de Hans Zimmer. Budget Meeting est issue de l’OST du film King Arthur, et donne une dimension incroyable au mot épique. Ah, et une fois de plus la vidéo n’est là que pour faire partager la musique, donc pas de montage inutile cette fois, seulement le tableau de Gustave Doré (Les trois juges de l’enfer) qui ma foi colle assez bien à la musique en question 
————————————————– Maybe my favorite track of all …
Tish Bodo