Do you follow a budget when paying bills?

Oh yes I do have to follow a budget when paying our bills, I do this every fortnight as this is when we receive our income, I like to pay the bills every fortnight and then I know that they are out of the way, we do our fortnightly shopping and then for our daily products I go once a week to do this.

i beleive u r doing the right job ,,, budgeting is very important for management of ur money u will get good point from it in future ,,, good luck

Yes, I have everything budgeted in an Excel spreadsheet too. I even have food money and gas money in there. Any bill that will come up that month is plugged in and "assigned" to a certain weeks paycheck - based on it's due date.

It's always a good idea to have a budget to ensure that the bills are paid and paid on time. We have a budget and we live by it strictly and faithfully, otherwise it could be an unpleasant surprise to find out that there is no money. That would rot your socks off, LOL.

yes i do follow bills and i also limit my expenses up to my earnings only, coz its hard to cover them up

I also keep a budget on Microsoft Excel. On the top I list all of my paycheck dates (as I live paycheck to paycheck) and on the left I list all of the bills that I have. I then determine which bills I will pay with which paycheck and try to balance the monthly bills out so that I have some spending money left each paycheck. I also save 10% of my income into a savings account.

we keep track of all our expenses and try to understand where we are wasting our money. Keeping this record helped us understand that we are spending too much on medicines. We then started taking precautionary measures for our children and soon were saving much more. We have our saving targets and plan our spending budget accordingly.

We live pay check to paycheck. I just pay the bills in order of when they are due. I balance the check book constantly to know where we stand.

I try too but with my husband being out of work for a couple of weeks its kinda hard. But that is all going to change he is back to work again. And we will be back on a budget again.

i put a log of everything i spent ,my father suggested me to do this for a better savings ang track of expenses,and it is helping me alot

We follow a strict budget each pay day. Usually I am the one who takes care of the finances. And I will budget before each pay day what needs to be paid, as well as taken care of when certain bills come in. First things first with us is we always put money aside for our bills each pay day. That way we can never get behind in our bills.. And at least then we know how much money we will have left over once we have taken money out for the bills. I find if we weren't to budget we'd probably end up falling behind on our bills. But also.. We wouldn't have as much savings as we do now at this time. We've always had the goal to put at least $100.00 each pay day for savings or an emergency fund. This has benefited us because.. We now don't have to worry if something unexpected was to come up. We also budget.. Certain amount of money per pay day for groceries. We find every pay day we spend roughly the same amount. So that makes it very easy to figure out how much we need to put aside for groceries each month. I am glad we are able to budget each & every pay day. And stick to this budget as well. Because some people I know around me do not budget there money correctly.. And then they end up being short of money, but also food within the house.. And this seems to happen each month that I have noticed this & then they complain about how.. They don't have anything to eat. So I am more than thankful that we budget because if we weren't to do this.. We would be on the same path as some who are stuck in this vicious cycle of irresponsibility when it comes to money. I'm glad that we're able to stick to our budget each month & not fall off of it. I think it helps us to reflect on how responsible we are as a couple. In conclusion.. I find budgets to be very useful & a way of saving on money compared to just spending it carelessly. I think it's smarter to know where your money is going each pay day.. Then to just be throwing it away all the time! . . Thanks for allowing me to share! xx

I use Quicken to keep track of our bills and our spending. It has really helped me to reduce the amount of late payments I send in because the program reminds me when the due dates are coming up. It's difficult for me to pay our bills on a regular schedule because my husband is a salesman. One month, he might sell a lot of cars and make a lot of money. The next month, he might go 2 or 3 weeks without selling any and we get really behind. It's tough, but I try to hold back the extra and not spend it so I have it to cover the lean times.

Every year I set up a bidget to follow. but I never seem to stick with it. This year I'm going to as we are trying to save for a trip to Disney World. Every month we are short on money. I'm trying to get organized enough that I can get out of the red each month and into the black. We have a very poor credit rating so wecan't lower our interest rates at all. That would be so helpful too.

Oh ay! Budgeting is so important, but I tend to not use a program like Quicken. I know how often my husband gets paid and what bills are due when, and which bills need to be paid with each check. It's worked *fairly* well, but it could be so much better. It's hard to budget when you have a husband that sees nothing wrong with going to Starbucks or the gas station for a drink/snack whenever he feels like it.

pay most bills as they come in for some come ever 3 months

i do the best i can to budget my money very carefully. i note the easiest place to cut costs is in the grocery store. i don't buy preprocessed foods. in them you find a lot of chemicals and bloated prices. most of my foods tell you what they are. rice tells you what it is in it's clear celephane plastic as do lentals and beans. potatoes in their brown skins are sself evident. carrots are...well carrots as are celery and onions and so on...bla bla bla. one trick i did that i didn't realize at the time was doing my computer repair and upgrades myself. saved myself a small fortune! techs cost $130 an hour and gas to take the machine to the next town costs a fortune! my computer requires frequent maintanence too. i also cost compair online and ship in from sales and bargain spots. buying blank cds and dvds in cake boxes and in shrink wrap is cheaper than the hard plastic containers.