Did you know that a written budget is a great way to help you control your purchasing, hold on to more of your money, and help you plan for the future?

A budget is a complete list of income and expenses that you can post on your fridge or store on your hard drive. It doesn't matter where it goes, just as long as it helps you make even smarter spending and savings decisions.

Suggestions for putting together a budget:

	A budget takes a little time to establish. To get started, keep track of all the money coming in (income) and all the money going out (expenses) for a few months. Certain expenses are for the basic necessities of life — like rent, food, telephone, electricity and transportation. These expenses usually occur every month, although the amount may vary. Other expenses are "optional," yet important to you — like entertainment and vacations.
	Set up your monthly budget, and then enter the actual expenses as they are incurred. Track whether you're spending more or less than you budgeted, and take this into account when you set up your next month's budget. If your expenses are higher than your income, look for ways to reduce spending.
	Once you figure out how you're spending money, you can start to factor savings into your budget. Make savings a part of every month's expenses, and it will become a helpful habit.
	Motivate yourself by creating a savings goal — for college, a new car, a vacation or maybe an apartment.
	To make it easy, we've set up a spreadsheet for you that can be downloaded to your computer. Simply click on your 12-month budget worksheet and fill in your monthly budget items and actual expenses. The program will do the calculations for you. As you go through the year, you'll see how much your saving ... or whether you're overspending.

Reminder: You may use MasterCard cards to pay for many of your monthly expenses. Some allow you to have the flexibility of paying bills over time (minimum or partial payments), but keep in mind, you may incur finance charges on the outstanding balance. Therefore, you need to think about how making partial or minimum payments affect your monthly budget. Try our Allowable Debt Calculator.