Budget Tips #1 – Have a Budget.

admin — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:32:56 +0000

You can not know how you are doing financially if you don’t have a budget. Without a budget you can easily spend more than you earn and that is a recipe for disaster.

Step 1 – Figure out what your household earning are per month. I use net after tax and any other deductions.
Step 2 – Make a list of your monthly bills. Average any that differ throughout the year like heating and air conditioning. I happen to live where my heating in winter balances my air conditioning in summer.
Step 3 – Think of any yearly bills like car insurance and divide those by 12 to get a monthly figure.
Step 4 – Estimate any other expenses that happen like car repair and house repairs. Again divide by 12 to get a monthly figure.
Step 5 – Examine you credit card bill and bank statements for the last month and sort into categories where you spent money. Food, Eating out, Clothes, Entertainment are good starting points ad more as needed. Total those up.
Step 6 -Total all expenses. Are you spending more than you make?

Next we have to figure out what to cut and that is the next article.

New Website

admin — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:07:29 +0000

I finally got around to updating the FridgeBudget website. Gone is the old clunky website. Here is the new shiny Wordpress site complete with a blog.

I intend to use the blog to talk about budgeting and personal finances. What I notice as I try to get my finances under control. Also decisions like Want vs Need, Replace vs Repair, Make vs Buy.

I look forward to getting comments and discussions on these topics.