You may be someone like me who keeps track of every penny of expenses. Or, you may not even have a budget. Either way, there is an easy way to budget your money and it’s so ingeniously simple.
Currently, I use iBank to track all my transactions and accounts, simply for the record. For budgeting I use PearBudget, a very simple Excel sheet that makes it easy to create a budget that can easily be maintained. But what about making sure planned expenses (rent, cell phone, utilities, insurance) are paid on time and in full? I have discovered a great way of “automating” your budget and cash flow. It’s called StackBacks Automated Budget System. Read the PDF explanation.
StackBacks Automated Budget System
Simply put, you have any income deposited in your checking account. That’s where all of your money is to sit that will pay for bills and regular expenses. You then determine the amount of money left over after you subtract your regular expenses. From that you set an allowance for yourself to pay for irregular expenses such as food, entertainment, or gas. That allowance is then transferred into a separate “allowance account” from which you can take with your debit card or by cash.
This method will build your savings in the bill-paying main account since you pay yourself a set allowance that will allow you to maintain a certain standard of living. The important thing is that you got your most important expenses covered in your main bill-paying account and budgeted a lump amount from which to take for other necessities as they come and leisure.
So… An account for bills, an allowance paid to another account for other needs, and the remainder is savings which remains in the original account.
