Starting Your Budget
Listing Your Bills
What bills/debts do you have? Think about this & lets go grab a copy of the most recent ones paid or not. We want to make sure we get all of our debts listed. Let's break out the bills into 3 lists. Start out using one sheet of paper for each list. Lable the top of each page with one each of the following: Now under each of these lists, list those debts that are paid monthly, quarterly and annually. If you pay some weekly or every two months or twice a year you can create additional lists for those time periods also. Leave a line or two between each debt. Our monthly debts of course will include items like; rent, electric, phone, water, garbage, doctors, prescriptions Quarterly may include items like; auto insurance, doctors Annual or bi-annual debt may include home taxes, auto insurance, car tags/registration (ouch..I always forgot this one, especially if you have a newer vehicle), and what about our Federal or State taxes come April 15th. If you don't have enough taken out of your paychecks and you don't have enough deductions come tax time, this one can hurt too. Ok, do you have them all wrote down? Good. Don't worry if you forgot any, just add them to your list when you remember them. Your budget will always be a work in progress. I am always revising mine. Lets make two columns next to each debt. At the top of one column, write Amount and Date at the top of the other column. Yes, you guessed it, now in each column next to the appropriate debt write down the amount and due date for each one. On the Monthly list just put down the date each month the debt is due. An example would be 15th or 1st. And on the other lists include the month also. Example would be May 1st, August 1st, December 1st. Don't worry if the amount due varies each month, quarter, or annually. As soon as you know the amount you will revise your budget. I normally estimate the highest I have paid and then I revise my budget as soon as I know the actual. This allows a little leeway in my budget. An example debt that fluctuates each month would be my electric. I use what the highest amount was I have had to pay in the past, it has seldom gone over that and it is normally less. This allows me a little leeway in my budget. Ok now that we have all that done, take a little break. Get up move around, go get a cup of coffee or tea and a little snack. Come back shortly, We have some more work to do. I don't want you to be overwhelmed by all the bills, we are going to break these down step by step. Set these lists aside and lets look at our
income.
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