How to budget
One thing I hate to do is budget. Creating it, sticking to it, just having it, all things I don’t like. It’s really hard to think about how all the money I make is going right back out of my bank account before it gets settled in.
Bank of America redid their layout for online banking. It makes it easier for you to do simple budgeting and reconciling on their website. It lets you rename transactions so you can easily tell what it was. But this isn’t always enough. You can always just use your checkbook to reconcile expenses if you don’t really have to figure out a budget (lucky you.) But if you’re anything like me, you need to figure out where your money is going to go and how you’re going to come up with the extra money you need.
I use NeoOffice’s version of Excel to do everything. I made a list of monthly expenses and added everything up. Showed when and how much money I get from financial aid and then figure everything out. Another good budgeting program I’ve used is Buddi (Mac and Windows compatible.) It’s really easy to have multiple accounts with different transactions. Very easy to use and has plenty of features necessary for simple budgeting.
One thing that really hurts college students is getting more debt. Here’s an article that touches on the credit card debt lesson. I’m sure many of you have heard this before and it’s getting redundant by now, but it’s true. I know it’s hard, I have the same problem. But at least if you have a nagging voice in the back of your mind, it helps reduce the debt. If no one had told me anything, I might have several thousands of dollars in debt, but instead I’ve only got a couple hundred, which is significantly lower than the average.
Budgeting 101 courtesy of About.com
Two online budgeting tools: Budget Pulse and Walletproof
This page was last modified on September 2, 2007 @ 3:28 pm
5 Responses
I’ve attempted so many times to make a list of money I spent for each month, but I never really got to actually do it. It’s probably because of my laziness? ah man…
but I’m glad I didn’t plan on the first place to make lots of loans although I’m been thinking of considering it…I don’t know, now that you’ve post about this, I’ll think again..
Good for you..couple hundreds in debt won’t hurt…
That’s good advice. I also like that Budget Pulse website. It’s pretty neat, thanks.
I’ve been trying to record my spendings
for the past few months and I realised
that I still don’t really cut down, somehow
o_O
Wish I would have seen this when I was in college…lol
I use the freeware Money Manager Ex to manage my budget. A lot easier than trying to manage it yourself on Excel.