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First let me thank you for visiting my website. My name is Jay Lillard and I am a retired auditor. Over the years, I've helped thousands of people with their personal, family, home and household budgets. I hope the information contained on this site can help you too. All of the budget and budgeting forms are FREE for you to copy and use as you like.
When preparing a budget, it is important to follow the four steps listed below. Follow them in order and you will have the greatest success.
- Document and Analyse Income & Expenses Use your checkbook, receipts, known monthly expenses, bills, pay stubs, etc. to determine what your AVERAGE monthly income and expenses have been over the past 6 to 12 months. You can use my budgeting worksheet or budget tracker to help you record each month's information.
- Set Saving and Spending Goals
Your first goal should be to set aside a certain percentage of income to go to savings. I usually recommend 10%. The balance of your income should then be assigned to your debt payments first and your average monthly expenses next. Cut back on expenses categories as needed in order to make your expenses and savings equal to your income. Write down what your goals are. This becomes your new budget. You can use the budgeting worksheet and goals worksheet to help with this.
- Agreement and Commitment
You must get everyone in the household who will be covered by the budget to agree to it. Anyone who spends money in your family must agree to the new budget, agree to stick with it, and agree to commit to the savings goals. Without agreement and commitment, your budget won't work.
- Analyse and Revise
Keep accurate records of all the income and spending that goes on each month. Make sure everyone is staying within the budget. If revisions of expense categories are necessary, make the appropriate changes on your master budget. But do not decrease your savings and do not decrease your debt payments. If anything, try to pay more than minimums each month on your debt, especially credit cards. Paying only the minimum monthly payment on credit card debt can take up to 40 years to pay off the debt. The weekly expense record and budget tracker can help keep track of spending.
TAKE ME TO THE FREE BUDGET FORMS
All of the budget forms referred to can be found at Foxway. This is my master budgeting website. It not only has all of the free forms you will need, but also contains information about other areas of personal finance. While there sign up for my FREE budgeting email course. It is a five part course that further explains the budgeting process and is a good way to get your budget up and running. Click on this Foxway link and you will be taken directly to the list of free budget forms you can use.
Good luck with all of your budget and budgeting efforts. It takes a little time to set up a good budget, but it is easy to follow later and will be worth the time through increased savings and reduced debt.
J.L.
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