A Budget Book

After I made the Manila Folder Dividers I used scrap paper to make my budget book. I had a lot of half used spiral ring notebooks left over from college so that was what I started with. Each section was laid out like the below. A title, how much each paycheck received was allotted to that category and a ledger.

I do have to say that this system was pretty crude. It took a lot of paper and if I wanted a special category (Like if I was saving for a couch) I either had to make a new section with divider or I had to cram it in on the side of the paper. After a few years of doing this I started reading some financial blogs.

Free Money Finance
Get Rich Slowly
Personal Finance Advice
Consumerism Commentary

These all advocate budgets, but I forget which one turned me onto the YouNeedABudget software. The system works off of the principal that you should work off of last month's paychecks, so I pulled out all of my savings to begin using "last months" money, bought the software and have not regretted it. No more waste of ink and paper and it is easy to add as many or as few categories. It has a search function too which is helpful. It keeps me from spending ages allocating my money and is so much simpler to view. It's gone up a little bit in price since I downloaded it, but I have not regretted this non-new purchase for it helps me see how necessary it is to make do with the not so new.