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30 Days to a better man
6. Keep track of spending. After you’ve created the budget for the
month, keep track of every single penny you spend to ensure that
you stay within your budget. Keeping track of your spending will also
come in handy when you make next month’s budget. You’ll be able
to review how much you spent the previous month and adjust your
budget accordingly. One of the best ways I’ve found to keep track of
your expenses is Mint.com. You can connect your bank account to
Mint, and each week you’ll get a report telling you how much you’ve
spent on groceries, gasoline, etc. It can be very helpful and eye-opening
to see your expenses broken down into a color pie chart; you may
be surprised about what portion of your money is going to things like
eating out. And you don’t have to worry about security; they use the
same security measures as online banking systems, and it’s read-only
anyway, meaning if someone did get in, they couldn’t withdraw or
move funds.
One of the best old-school methods of keeping track of your
budget is to put the money you budgeted for certain things like
groceries into envelopes. You only use the money in the envelope
when making purchases for that thing. When the money
runs out, you’re done spending in that category for the month.
7. Review your budget every month. Each month, go over last month’s
budget to see how you did. You’ll be able to see where you did well
and where you can improve. After you review, repeat the whole process
and make next month’s budget.
Tools For Budgeting
Below, we’ve created a short list of budgeting tools that you can use to help
you get started with your budget. What’s nice about all of them is that
they’re free!
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