SELF IMPROVEMENT

about budgeting
1. The first, and probably most important budgeting strategy, is to pay yourself first. Put aside at least 2% of your annual income to cover unexpected expenses. 2. Another good strategy for maintaining tight control over your budget is to minimize debit card use; use cash instead. Spending cash also has more emotional impact, so this can help limit frivolous spending.
3. Make your payments automatic. Setting up your regular bills to pay by either auto-draft or online automatic payment can help by greatly reducing the amount of work you do each month to pay your bills. By reducing payment date variance that is inevitable with mailing handwritten checks, you create a more consistent bill paying schedule that is easier to track and budget.

4. If you think about it, strategy 2 and to some extent strategy 3 are minor variations of a very old and effective method of budgeting - the envelope method. Every item in their budget had an envelope. No overdrawn check fees when using the old-school envelope method.
This tangible representation of your budget can come in many forms: paper and pencil, a spreadsheet, or specialized budgeting software.
Whatever mix of budgeting strategies you use to maintain control over your money, it's better to have some kind of strategy than no strategy at all. Hopefully this list of strategies has something you can use to add more value to your current budgeting plan.