If this means I need to put extra money in my account, I will do so, I just dont understand how to have a full-proof way of figuring out how much I need to put in my account, without totally unnecessary funds sitting there.

[...] stuff you need and will definitely eat. You don’t want to buy any food without a plan or a budget and find that by Friday you’ve no money left to buy your dinner. The best approach is to take [...]

[...] Get Rich Slowly featured a guest post detailing the importance of budgeting. [...]

[...] Start a Budget! [...]

Your topic about Budgeting arrived just in time, or not too late to read, coz, just last saturday pm, i just gave a talk about financial management,for our singles org.in our church, focusing mainly on budgeting & investing. Its very seldom in my life that i give a seminar on any topic, and im happy to share my knowledge and experiences on how to manage our finances. Its an overwhelming experience, and im glad that my audience gave a positive feedback. they are very grateful for sharing a very interesting and important topic, a learing experience as they say, and realization on how to handle their lives & money.( I just hope & pray that they will start to practice doing budgeting,I told them that its hard to start, but its the only way to manage their lives.) I just want to share about how i presented my budgeting strategy to my audience. I made a point that in doing the budgeting, you start in order of priority,to live, of course,here are the ff.in its simpliest & general format:

Income for the month: xxx
Less:Fixed expenses:
Tights xxx
rent/mortgage xxx xxx

Variables Exp.
Allowance(for self)xxx
Groceries/personal
maintenance xxx xxx

Other expenses:
Savings xxx
debts xxx
allow.for parents xxx xxx
—-
excess/defficiencies(shld be + P xxx
or else, adjust the exp in ====
personal maint.or defer allow.
for parents.)

I know we have different approach on budgeting, but for me, it works very well,
and it takes a lot of descipline and determination to do this,until it becomes part of your life…

God Bless! and thank you for your worth reading articles.

Fe
Manila, Phils.

Thank you for your feedback.

First, I’m rather offended that you accuse me of plagiarizing Dave’s material, because I referred directly to Dave in my post, and I certainly didn’t have the book out to copy word for word any of the material.

Now, a few other thoughts.

“Common sense for your dollars and cents.” “Giving you the same advice your grandmother would – only we keep our teeth in.”

Those catchphrases from his show are two examples of Dave saying his material isn’t original or new. He also has stated many times on the show, as well as his books and Financial Peace University videos that he didn’t make any of his material up, he just packaged it really well.

Yes, my post drew on Dave’s material, but I think I packaged it well. I said that I would be describing Dave’s budgeting system in the post itself, because JD asked me to write about the topic specifically. I also think that many people that visit GRS will never read Dave’s books, listen to his radio show or attend a Financial Peace class, but they will read this blog. This was an opportunity for me to clarify some of Dave’s material, as comments on this blog indicate some people might want to know more.

I work in nonprofits, and I know steady cash flow is important to most charities as well!

For those who can restrain their spending without a budget, kudos. I have a feeling that works for only a very small percentage of the population. Spending money is easy but holding on to it is tough.

If you haven’t tried budgeting, try it, by all means. But don’t assume that you can’t pull yourself out of debt if budgeting doesn’t work for you. You can — you just need to try other approaches.

Also zero-sum budgeting does not mean you can’t keep a small cushion in your checking account. It just means your not adding to it (or eating it away) unknowingly.

I think drafting a zero-sum budget is one of the most eye opening lessons to understanding the finite nature of cash flow.

I do use a zero sum budget but it is actually kind of fluid over the course of the month. Last month, for example, I had some unexpected expenses in household mainenence but I didn’t spend my entire grocery budget so money just got moved from one category to another. Because I keep up with the budget over the course of the month I could see this was happening adjust accordingly.

Anyway, the whole budgeting thing works fantastically well for me and my family. Quite a surprise after all the years I spent saying it would never work for me.

I do like the idea of giving first — charity and then your own savings. I find that the more generous I am with others and myself, the more I somehow manage to earn…

Changing and controlling behavior really is what budgeting is about. In order to change the behavior of money, you have to change your own. Growing up and acting like an adult is pretty important.

I’m not an expert on irregular income, but I’m planning to write a follow-up for budgeting with irregular incomes based on my experiences helping people in my church through FPU.

Also, I should note that I’m not convinced that all businesses maintain a budget.

All the same, I’m grateful to Josh for sharing his thoughts on budgeting!

Of course, you HAVE to control your costs … but, it is MUCH more important to your financial future to find ways to INCREASE YOUR INCOME … even for, say, a teacher!

Come on, you must have a passion?! … think of some ways to make money on the side, while you are doing it …

My husband keeps offering to set up an excel budget sheet for me, but honestly I like my system – a monthly office calendar that I pencil in our pay days and bills on. I also pencil in our nights out and anything else that will require spending. I check them off as the month goes on and things get paid, and I can constantly update my buffer to know how much we’ll have left at the end of the pay period or month. I can project through the month and into the next month to get an idea of where we are, where we’ll be, and where we need to adjust. It works for me.

In general, we work to keep our fixed monthly expenses as low as we can given how we want to live. Then, we try to be frugal with purchases (very few impulse purchases), and fix our tracked spending habits as we go. For some reason, it’s easier for us to make the tough decisions based on seeing our real spending, rather than planning for future spending.

I suppose that if we were to do something completely different in terms of income and expenses, we would set up a budget just to see if we’re “to plan” or getting into trouble. At least, that sounds like the wise thing to do!