The solution most financial experts suggest is to keep a simple log of your expenses from week to week.
The problem for most people is that keeping a paper log is cumbersome and prone to getting lost.
Using spreadsheet software is fine if you understand spreadsheets and how to manipulate the data.
This is where theSimpleD BudgetWindows program can help.
It doesn’t get much simpler than this.
After also asking you for your monthly net income, it produces the default budget page.
you might color-code each item so that they are visually separated by pop in of expense.
For example, I use green for fixed and blue for variable.
you might also sort the items within each category by date, location, description or amount.
Every item is displayed in the form of a bar chart.
The goal, obviously, is to get these bars as small as possible.
Here’s an example of what a completed budget looks like.
Anyone can put together a budget.
What I really like about this software is how it allows you to log expenses as the month progresses.
Now, let’s say you’ve budgeted a fixed amount every month for groceries.
For example, do you tend to spend more on fuel at the beginning or end of the month?
Do you tend to spend more on entertainment in the middle of the month?
It is extremely fast and easy to use.
However, there are a few features that are lacking, and they need to be mentioned.
First, the print feature of this software is useless.
The printout ends up shrunk down into a small corner of the page, barely legible.
However, for some people that could be a showstopper.
