Comments on: 10 tips for a better budget

By: Sean Hopcraft

Sean Hopcraft — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:30:36 +0000

I really enjoyed this article. The first and most important thing before you begin #1 on this list is you MUST be honest with yourself. Justifying a bad spending habit is not going to help on your “recovery” to get your finances under control. The Bible is filled with so much instruction on money. Why did God put that in there? Because He knew that men would be swayed easily on material wealth.

Thanks Bob.

By: New Covenant Bible Institute

New Covenant Bible Institute — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 16:50:41 +0000

Another great article Bob! I really do agree with Budgeting is just like baking cookies for those who are having hard times in budgeting, just focus on your goal and automatically it will give you more strength to do what you need to do.

By: Jerry

Jerry — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 22:31:48 +0000

If you have the flexibility it is best to measure your unfettered spending flow then fine tune down the areas that you can live without. Importing your statement for tracking is the truest way to make a budget happen long term. My MS Money application no longer works so I searched and found a program called bank2budget (www.bank2budget.com). This program cuts my time down in paying bills and tracking expenditures by 90%. I spend about 1 hour a month and can show you trends and many other charts. It requires MS Access version 2002 or higher though. Good luck to us all.

By: Hank

Hank — Sat, 22 May 2010 12:56:00 +0000

This is a great list! I would even add saving for Christmas and Birthday presents in with #9. If you know that you historically spend $500 on Christmas presents, etc., then you should save about $40 a month or $20 a paycheck to meet that goal. It should be in your budget too!

By: David

David — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 02:23:51 +0000

Wonderful and great tips in this article. A budget is a must of course. The way you make and then implement that budget is equally important. It must be a budget that you and your spouse can live with and be easy to maintain (tip #8). My suggestion is an allowance system that is designed for adults and families. Each member of the family gets paid a set amount each “payday” and spends those $ they way they need and want. The rest of the budget is fixed, so spending is consistent and the same each month.

By: bob

bob — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:38:20 +0000

@Scott and Meg
great points thanks for sharing. Meg, I really agree with you. There seems to be a huge discrepancy between what we “think” is going on with our money and what “actually” is happening. Until you do some kind of analysis like you mentioned most people just really don’t know. I know personally, no matter how much I think I understand about where our money is going, when I actually look at it itemized, I am always surprised

By: Scott @ The Passive Dad

Scott @ The Passive Dad — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 05:27:51 +0000

#2 Delay a purchase or if you aren’t sure, you can take someone you trust with you. I’m not talking a best friend that would say yes to anything. Maybe a buddy or maybe your spouse. Talk about the item and make sure you really need it. If you don’t, then you can start a budget category for that “fun item”

Great list you put together. Thanks.

By: Meg

Meg — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:03:55 +0000

One way to discover those “budget busters” is to make a list of everything you have spent money on from your checkbook register, or debit card statement. ( or, shame on you, from your credit card stmt )
Once you have that list, you can categorize it and see what areas really eat up your money. When we did this we were really shocked to see how much money we were spending at the grocery store… we did a closer look and saw waste in the soda and snack areas.

By: Uncommonadvice

Uncommonadvice — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:36:08 +0000

Number 9 is the most powerful tip – “emergencies” actually pop up every month. Having a month’s worth of bills set aside in a safe account is a necessity.

By: bob

bob — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:17:58 +0000

@Min
I wouldn’t be able to write it either I guess…