Budgeting!! Help!

hi Tess, with the budgeting problem you are having, make sure that you live within your means. don't buy things through credit cards or through credit "utang". learn the principle "If you cannot buy it in cash, don't buy in credit." Think dozen times before you purchase anything. and make sure anything that you buy is a "needs" category,not the "wants". with the bills in your house, cut off the use of some appliances when you need to like rice cooker and air conditioner.you can alter rice cooker with cooking through coal and reduce usage of air con like once a month and use instead electric fan. with water bill, you see to it that every drop is not gone wasted. I mean, conserve the use of it. with landline phone bills, if you already have cellphone, then maybe you can cut it off and use the cellphone instead. Train you children on budgeting as well.

coupons. i swear by these. print them, clip them, peel them. Print them off the computer, clip them from the sunday paper and peel them off products. I recetnly went to my doctors and found a pad of activia yogurt coupons. $1.00 off a 4 pack or larger of activia yogurt. then i found out my store has them onsale for 1.89. yeah, so im going to only pay .89 cents for a thing of yogurt! now you may wonder how coupons will help with bills. and i will tell you its because the money you save on your food, can be used towards your bills. Next write down how much everything costs and get envelopes. mark these envelopes such as Rent, gas, food, personal items, etc. then stick the amount of cash into each enevlope that you plan on using for that item. say ur rent is $400. stick that amount in there. dont borrow money from other envelopes to cover the shortage from another one, just make sure u have extra incase. Do that for all of your NEEDS. Then whatever is left over, save 75% of that then 25% is extra spending money for things such as movies, hair, nails, etc. Good luck

I have had troubles budgeting too, but this happens to me when there are unwelcomed expenses (biglaan). Sometimes no matter how we try to budget our money we still end up lacking money because something came up or that we had to pay for something that we have not accounted for in our budget list. I guess often with such a limited budget or resources, we do need to just try to prioritize which of our budget goes to where.

Oh, I have been facing the same problems for more than two years now. Budgeting is no longer an easy thing to do these days when all items have perked up their prices. Couple this problem with the difficulty to scrape up extra money to answer to those other expenses yet that we incur other than food and fare money. Everyone is holding the purses tight! So you can only sell items to friends only if, they are convinced that, it is an important thing which they can have from you at a lower price. Another way of cutting on expenses will be to walk the distance rather than take a ride, if it is a walking distance. Cut on those unncessary trips, too. Sometimes we pay visits to places that we just fancy going to but, there is no need for it actually. All the few centavos saved in any occasion add up to some pesos anyway after the day.

The concept of budgeting is simple. Many people tend to look at this as follows: Income - expenses = Savings (if there is any left, and there should be) Somehow I must say that you are in an easier position as you have regular income. Like me, I do not have regular income, it varies from month to month. It makes it a bit more difficult to budget. Before you start any form of budgeting, it is important for you to know the expenses you need to spend on. You can only understand the trend in your expenses if you track them, at least for a month. But just bear in mind there are expenses that are annual which you need to calculate as well. After looking at it for a month, you will be able to understand how much you are spending on things like food, bills, healthcare, transportation, family expenses, etc. If you have savings at the end of the month, that's good. If you are in deficit, then you need to relook at your expenses and cut down on expenses that are unnecessary. You need to understand between needs and wants as well. If you restraint from purchasing items you don't need or you buy cheaper alternatives for items you do need, then there is potential savings. At the end of the day, you will be in a better position. After bearing that in mind, you will be able to have a budget (limit on expenses in each category). Try to keep to it. After several months, you will gain some savings. Remember: It takes 21 days to change a habit. Make tracking your expenses a good habit.