Blog for all health-conscious: Quick and Easy Cheap and Healthy A Budget for Every Personality {7 Days, 7 Tools: Build a Better Grocery Budget}

Sunday, 24 June 2012

Quick and Easy Cheap and Healthy A Budget for Every Personality {7 Days, 7 Tools: Build a Better Grocery Budget}

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A Budget for Every Personality {7 Days, 7 Tools: Build a Better Grocery Budget}

Posted: 23 Jun 2012 07:37 PM PDT

TOMORROW, my new eBook, Your Grocery Budget Toolbox, is scheduled to be released! All this week, I will be giving you sneak peeks of what you will find in the book, and whet your appetite for more. Because trust me, there’s a lot more. Your Grocery Budget Toolbox is over 150 pages long, each page loaded with all the tools you need to build a better grocery budget. Join with me this week (subscribe so you don’t miss a single post), and share with your friends (use the buttons to the left)… I have a feeling they’d appreciate a little grocery budget makeover, too.

Chapter 1 of Your Grocery Budget Toolbox starts things off with a big bang: The Budget. The Budget is certainly not a fun topic for most of us, but it’s an essential element of life. One of those things that’s not exactly fun, but somebody’s gotta do it. If you’ve never made a budget before, it’s time to get serious. Or if you’ve made one, but it wasn’t effective, it’s time to try again.

Lucky for you, I’ve rounded up some great budgeting tools for you, no matter your style! Pick one of these budget types to get you started on your path to financial bliss.

Side note: Before we get started, I just want to share a revelation I had a couple years ago regarding budgeting. My DH and I had made budgets several times in our marriage, but kept getting frustrated because each month was different: different expenses depending on the time of year, what bills were due, how many birthdays there were, and other things. So we’d try and give up, try and give up. We didn’t rack up huge amounts of debt or anything, but we just weren’t really intentional or purposeful about our spending.

Then I had the revelation: We could make a new budget every month, one that took into consideration all the varying factors for each month.

Whoa. That was huge for me. Now I realize that probably 97% of people in the world already know that. But for the other 3% (hi, guys!), this tip’s for you. Now we have a basic budgeting template we work from (I include a variation of it in the book!) that we adjust every month according to what is needed.

Now. Onto the budgeting tools.

For the Visual-Minded

This pie-chart budgeting tool from Pete the Planner shows you at a glance how much of a percentage to allot for each budget category, so you know how much you should be spending in each area of life (housing, transportation, utilities, and, of course, food).

For the Dave Ramsey Fan

More than likely you’ve heard of the household budgeting guru and the cash envelope system he encourages. While I love the concept, I’ve had a hard time working out the practicalities of withdrawing cash and carting around envelopes so I have the cash in hand when I need it. Today’s Nest offers a free printable envelope that simplifies matters. Print it, cut it out, label it, and keep tabs on where you spend the money and how much is left.

For the Tech-Savvy

I consider myself fairly tech-savvy, but I haven’t actually gotten to the point where I have a budget app on my phone. But this one is worth considering: Ace Budget.

For the Fashionista

If a boring old spreadsheet makes you want to cringe, then you’ll love Sissyprint’s beautified budget worksheet. It might actually make budgeting a chore you look forward to!

For the DIY-er

This is the category I find myself in most of the time. I don’t like spending money if I feel like it’s something I can do myself. And I don’t like most pre-formatted budget worksheets because either they have extra categories I don’t need or lack the categories I do need. So – I do it myself! Make Use Of tells you how to make your own budget on Excel in 4 easy steps.

There you go, friends! Chances are, you’ll find that one of these budgeting tools will work for you! And if you have another great budgeting tool that works well for you, please leave a link in the comments.

Do you have a monthly budget that works for you?