How to make a budget

What is the best way to start a budget? 

The first thing that anyone who wants to make a budget must do is compare their income to their expenses. The good thing is that it is quite easy to do. To get started you can download this Excel budgeting spreadsheet which will help you calculate how much you spend each month and compare it to your current income. It's too bad most of us never learned this in school and had to figure it out on our own - so here is the lesson that we should have learned in 5th grade:

Expenses > Income = Bad | Expenses < Income = Good

And honestly, as simple as it sounds, that is the key to wealth. Anyone, and I mean anyone, who IS wealthy (I emphasize IS because I am not talking about people who appear to be wealthy, but who are actually in debt up to their eyeballs) spends LESS money than they earn. AKA - their expenses are less than their income. The great news about this is that anyone can do this - no matter what their income level. If you can do it on a small income, then you can do it on a large income. If you can't do it on a small income, then you won't be able to do it on a large one either. Trust me! If you don't believe me, just ask all of the lottery winners who went bankrupt within years of winning millions of dollars.

Back to making our budget… 

Regardless of how your expenses and income compare right now - get excited, because you can easily change it!! If it is bad you can make it so much better!! If it is good, you can still make it even better!! I will show you how later, but for now…

Let's make a budget! 

Did you calculate what your monthly expenses and income were? Were your expenses less than your income? If so, you are a rare breed who is in great shape, so just sit tight for a minute. For everyone else, whose expenses exceeded your income - you are not alone. You actually have a lot of company. The problem is that it isn't good company! Most of our debt-ridden society is in the same boat, but you are one of the bold ones who is jumping out of the debt boat!!

So, if your income is $1000 and your expenses are $1200, that means you spend an extra $200 each month that YOU DON'T HAVE!! Your job now is to find out what you can get rid of or quit buying each month to save that $200. If you have no idea where to start you can check out these  money saving tips or browse other money saving ideas.

I know, I know - this is the part that hurts. Just like pruning a bush - cutting back hurts, but ultimately you are going to yield so MUCH more fruit because of it!!

The goal here is to get your expenses and income to AT LEAST be equal. Once that is accomplished we can work on eliminating wasteful spending or cut other costs to bring the expenses below the income. Now that you have calculated what your monthly income and expenses are we can start designing our budget. We will first discuss the less effective, but easier method for budgeting…

The world's easiest budget 

There are 2 simple rules to do a simple budget:

1. You can't spend more than you earn (carrying a balance on a credit card is not allowed).
2. Money must go to the budget categories as soon you get paid.

The way it works:

Rather than having 10-20 different categories of items to be budgeted for you only focus on the three most important ones and let the rest of the chips fall where they will. So, to do this you take your paycheck of say $1000 and right off the top you put the money to your main priorities. For many people this is tithing to their church, retirement savings, college savings for children, etc…

A sample of this would be:

-$1000  paycheck
-$100    tithe
-$100    retirement savings

= $800 (for the rest of the bills and everything else)

It is absolutely critical that the money gets taken out FIRST for these few budgeted items. If not, I can almost guarantee that the full amount will not make it as intended. I highly recommend making this process automatic by using direct deposit or some other form of automatic withdrawal. There is just something about human nature that has a hard time staying consistent with things like this. Why do you think the U.S. government takes our taxes directly out of our paycheck, rather than coming to collect the full sum at the end of the year? It is the same principle - use it to your advantage.

Easy budget, but not very efficient

I think this budget is perfect for people who don't want to budget. It is simple, doesn't take up much time, and will help you reach some savings goals. That said, it is still inefficient and leaves the door wide open for inefficient and foolish spending. I think it should be considered the "lazy man's budget" - and you are not LAZY, you are willing to work to get your finances in order!! I know this because you are still reading. So, since you are NOT lazy and are hungry for more of a challenge, let's look at how the pros budget.

The money saving budgeting method 

Yes, this method takes a little bit more time and energy, but it also will provide you with long-term financial benefits if followed.

To do this we are just going to expand on the lazy man's budget mentioned above. Rather than having just three categories of items budgeted for, we are going to create as many as we need to put a limit on our spending in all areas. You can use the mentioned budget spreadsheet as a guide for tracking your progress. Try to account for every possible expense that you could run into. You will never be able to budget for every possible scenario, but the goal is to minimize surprise expenses. Inevitably, there will still be surprises from time to time - so I suggest creating a category for these surprises (or you can just use your emergency fund).

How to stick with your budget 

The almost sure-fire way to make a budget that fails is to NOT budget for any fun stuff. I wrote about how budgeting should be fun and it is a necessary ingredient for success. You need to budget for clothing, entertainment, going out to dinner, or whatever else it is you love to do! The key is to do it in moderation and to set limits and abide by them.

The amazing thing is that by budgeting for fun stuff, it actually liberates you to spend money on these items. When you have money budgeted each month to buy clothes, the money is now sitting there waiting to be used for that assigned purpose. Suddenly you can go clothes shopping without feeling guilty!!

Budgeting truly becomes fun when you have money sitting in the bank waiting to be spent. Imagine budgeting for vacation and after a little while you have hundreds of dollars begging to be spent. And when you go on your trip and come back home you don't owe any money to a credit card company! Now that is how a budget becomes fun. It also provides motivation for sticking with it.

Other budget options 

There are many ways to make a budget work. The key is to finding a system that works for you and sticking with it. This article has gone over a basic method of budgeting, there are additional budgeting methods discussed on www.christianpf.com