HELP!!!!! I need a budget plan.?

Question

I am almost completely out of debt. The only way that happen, i moved back home with mom for almost 2 years. Only paid 150.00 for rent and the rest of the money went to pay off bills. I moved out in march and I am drowning again. Thankfully I am not completely under water yet. But, if I continue in my way i will be soon. I am a single mom with 4 kids, working 2 jobs and going to school. I make more than enough money to pay my bills on time but some where I am not adding things up right. maybe I forgot to move the decimal or something hahaha anyway is there any place i can go or someone I can take all my info to so they can put me on a budget. for free if possible. thank you very much

Answer 1

Budgets seldom work. Here's what to do without anyone's help.
Get yourself a bank account with a large bank. (Chase, Citi, BofA). Most of them will give you free access to online banking and most importantly their billpay feature instead of writing checks. Write as few checks as possible. I suggest a large bank because they gurantee the arrival of your payment to be on time on an specific date, most payments to credit cards, large utility companies, satellite, cable etc can be made electronically through those large banks in as little as one day. Smaller banks will only give you a range of when your payment will arrive and arent as reliable. Pay upcoming bills once, or twice per week scheduling them to be sent that specific night, this will debit your accout right away and show you your remaining balance after those bills are paid. This is a very important step, since your balance will only reflect what you have left after those bills are paid.
Do not try to balance your checkbook using a register you will never be able to keep up with your debit card purchases, especially small ones like cofee, fast food, dry cleaning, etc. Instead look at your accounts online DAILY! most of these banks will show you transactions up to the minute. It will take you 5 minutes to see what is coming out, but you need to do it DAILY if you are not going to use a check register. Do not use your debit card to make gas purchases. Gas stations do not batch credit card transactions daily. That means that if you fill up today, you may not see the charge hit your account for a few days & if you did it on a weekend it could be longer. This will show you having more in your bank account than what you actually have. Use cash at first, when you get a hand on your bills use a credit card to pay for gas for convenience & pay the balance at the end of the month. This should get you started. Good Luck!

Answer 2

Start using an "envelope system": (this may require an "up-front" investment of between $2 and $3 for a pack of envelopes!)

When you get paid, take 90% of your pay out as cash. Then put the rent money in an envelope marked "rent" (should be roughly 25% of the total), food money in a second envelope (~20%), utilities in a third (~35%), & fun money (10%) in the last.

DO NOT use any money in a particular envelope to pay other envelopes bills. If you don't have enough for the rent, move somewhere cheaper. If you are short on food, eat less, or sell the car, etc., etc., etc.

If you develop sensible limits for each expense, and stick to them, you'll soon find you actually have money LEFT OVER.

Then you really start winning...

Financial success has nothing to do with how much you have "coming in", and EVERYTHING to do with how much you have "going out"....

Answer 3

jj d is wrong. Pre-packaged budgets NEVER work. REAL budgets ALWAYS work. The difference is what a budget really means. A budget is nothing more or less than a PLAN for what YOU will do with EVERY penny you bring in for the month. The ONLY plan that works for you is the plan YOU make. Once you make your plan, it is LAW for you unless you
DELIBERATELY make changes IN WRITING. This forces you to THINK about how you spend money. The 'envelope system' mentioned earlier is an excellent tool for managing YOUR budget. The only 'tools' you need for creating a budget are a sheet of paper and a pencil or pen.

Answer 4

Get the book "The Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey and listen to him on the radio. He is excellent!

Answer 5

Try http://www.pearbudget.com - it's free and really, really easy to use. Good luck!