DISQUS

Consumerism Commentary: Take Control of Your Finances Part 5: Build a Better Budget

  • Miranda · 1 year ago
    Great post! I have a sort of virtual envelopes system, although it's not as advanced. I have my bill paying account, the emergency fund/long terms savings account, and the "fun" spending. Keeping it simple seems to work for us. (We also have retirement account savings automatically deducted each month.) I like automatic bill pay, and we schedule these bills in Quicken so that they also automatically come out of our personal finance software as well. Periodically, we have the software make a chart of what we've been spending, so that we can make sure we're still on track.
  • Tom · 1 year ago
    Personally since I carry my cellphone/PDA with me all the time cash tracking is done on an Excel file on my cellphone/PDA. THen I enter them later on my Microsoft Money. MS Money handles all the credit cards/budgeting.
  • Andrew Chilton · 1 year ago
    Snap! I just wrote an article about the envelope system much like this one today too! Wow, we even used the same image.

    I have found that the best way to budget for those infrequent expenses is to have a Freedom Fund. Generally this is somewhere (an account or an envelope) where you put a certain amount each month to cover for those months in which an infrequent expense occurs. It's almost part of a yearly budget as opposed to a monthly budget.
  • Jimmy Liew · 6 months ago
    Great post. I previously fall into credit card trap. It took me 3 years to get out from the trap. I have used a lot of budgeting thing tools, not every tool works. I analyst and come out with one which works for me. It is exactly what you mention in the post. At least it works for me. :)