Help You Get Out Of Debt

How To Make A Budget That Will Help You Get Out Of Debt It's unfortunate but true that creating and sticking to a budget is about as much fun as having a tooth pulled without the benefit of anesthesia. But like having a tooth pulled, once budgeting becomes a habit, you'll find that your life is just going to feel much better.

How to get started

Despite what you might read elsewhere, the first thing you need to do to get started creating a budget is to write down some short- and long-term goals. Why would you do this? I'll address the reason for this a bit later.

Second, you need to gather up every one of your financial statements. This would include utility bills, bank statements, savings account statements, information about your investments

This would be both your regular pay, where your taxes are automatically deducted and any other income sources such as money you earn from selling items on eBay or a part-time job. Step four is to list all your monthly expenses. This would be all those you have during any month - like your mortgage payment or rent, auto insurance, car payments, groceries, entertainment, utilities, auto insurance, retirement- in short, every possible expense.

Fixed and variable

The fifth step is to divide your expenses into the categories of variable and fixed. Your fixed expenses are the ones that remain the same every month such as your mortgage payment or auto loan payment. These are called fixed expenses because they are unlikely to change. On the other hand, variable expenses are those that can be different every month, including things such as groceries, entertainment, gasoline, dining out and gifts. This category is important because this is where you will be making adjustments.

Total them up

You will next need to total up all of your monthly income and monthly expenses. If you have more income than expenses, congratulations. You will have money left over at the end of the month that you can save for retirement or to pay down your debts faster. On the other hand, if you learn that you have higher total expenses that income, you will need to make some