|
|
Using the Internet to Budget The difference between doing financial planning and setting your budget is that financial planning involves defining your financial goals and objectives, determining the best strategy to achieve those goals and objectives, and measuring your progress. Budgeting, on the other hand, starts with establish- ing the spending targets that help you stay within your means of paying your bills. On average, most Americans spend about 10 percent more than they have, and in most cases, they overspend because they have only a vague idea of where their money goes. Often the notion of living on a budget seems like punishment for hard work, yet the better way to think about a budget is as a spending plan - nothing more, nothing less. Creating a budget using a pencil and paper usually takes one to three hours, but if you've already started organizing information about your income and spending and make use of a canned online budget (a predetermined online budget based on your annual income), you can probably reduce the time required to build a budget to just several minutes. Unless you're in debt trouble, base your budget on organization, not penny- pinching. Getting organized can show you how to save money without giving up the things you love. Your spending plan easily and instantly tells how much money you have to spend at any given time, and this valuable informa- tion enables you to profit from opportunities and react in a positive way to emergencies.
Yahoo! Finance offers three online budget calculators that get you pointed in
the right direction by helping you answer these important questions:
(http://finance·yahoo·com/calculator/banking-budgeting/bud-02) |
|