Product Description

Does your credit card balance climb higher and higher every month? Are you overwhelmed by outstanding loans? Do you wish you had a better handle on the future, whether it’s college funds, retirement savings, investments, or even short-term goals?

No matter your financial goal, a well-defined budget is the first step to meet it. The bestselling classic The Budget Kit has helped hundreds of thousands of people across America develop effective budgets and gain financial freedom. In this fully updated and revised edition, you will gain the skills to control your money—and your future.

Learn to:

• Create a simple, functional system for managing your finances, with or without financial software
• Navigate the latest developments in the paperless world of electronic banking
• Discover the freedom of being able to achieve your personal and financial goals
• Make a plan to pay off debt and plan for the future

With Judy’s tried-and-true guidance, you can get your spending under control and create a budget that will get you on the road to financial freedom.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12896 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Review
"A foolproof way to organize and maintain a personal budget." - Publishers Weekly -- Review

Review
“A foolproof way to organize and maintain a personal budget.”—Publisher’s Weekly

“I recommend The Budget Kit over other budget books because it doesn’t just give you blank spaces to fill in. It really explains the hows and whys. Even if you’re already in debt it can help you pay off those debts when you know where the money is.”—Terry Savage, Author, The Savage Truth on Money

From the Publisher
Budgeting Just Got Easy

Simply having money does not necessarily guarantee your ability to manage it. In an age of information overload, many of us simply don’t have the time, knowledge, or organizational skills to set up a simple, functional system for managing our daily, monthly, and yearly finances. That’s where The Budget Kit comes in—practical, comprehensive, and easy-to-use, this bestselling classic shows you how to put your financial house in order and take the first steps toward financial independence.

Even if you are using a financial software program, you will find the concepts in The Budget Kit to be essential to your understanding of budgeting. Whether you make $30,000 or $100,000, if you follow the guidelines in this manual, you will be well on your way to creating the freedom and ability to achieve your personal and financial goals.

Praise for previous editions of The Budget Kit:

“The Budget Kit is a budgeting workbook that’s truly usable. Judy Lawrence breaks the job into easy-to-take steps.”

—Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine

“One of the most usable resources we’ve ever seen.”

—Money magazine

“I recommend it over other budget books because it doesn’t just give you blank spaces to fill in. It really explains the hows and whys. Even if you’re already in debt it can help you pay off those debts when you know where the money is.”

—Terry Savage, Author, The Savage Truth On Money

“A foolproof way to organize and maintain a personal budget.”

—Publishers Weekly

Customer Reviews

Wow! I've finally mastered the art of the budget
I had the misfortune to fall in love with a profession that doesn't pay beans. I also have tastes that would be more in line for an heiress. What to do?

Well, what I -did- do was overspend, get myself into credit-card debt, get myself out of it and still not have any idea how to save money or manage a budget. But this great little book changed that.

There's some advice and encouragement from the author here, but that's not the focus here. The focus would be extremely easy-to-use charts that help you plan your spending and keep track of what you actually -did- spend.

It's pretty easy: First, figure out your yearly expenses (the author provides a long list of these to jog your memory). These include car maintenance, professional dues, subscription renewals, haircuts, vet visits -- the whole shebang. There's also a great worksheet that lets you figure out your gift-giving expenses for birthdays, holidays and so on. Add them all up and divide by 12. That's the amount you need to save every month for these occasional expenses. (Why didn't I think of that?)

Then, for each month, there's a one-page worksheet where you figure out what your income will be for the month and what your expenses will be. You can easily chart when you'll get paid and when you'll need to pay your bills.

Finally, there's a two-page worksheet for each month to keep track of what you actually did spend. (It was a real eye-opener for me to realize what I actually spent on snacks each month!)

This is the first time I've every been able to create and stick to a realistic budget, and I have to say that it's pretty awesome. I actually have money left the second week of each pay period now, and I don't have to skip paying one bill so I can pay the others.

Here's a tip that I used to keep track of my budget: I copied it into my planner every week, so after I spent my allocation for, say, dining, I would cross it off. That way, I didn't get confused about how much of my budget for the week I'd actually used.

A faithful companion that no one should be without!
I've been using Judy Lawrence's "Common Cents" system of budget management for probably the past 12 years or so, and it's made a big difference in how I handle my money. I track all my spending in a notebook (and in my checkbook), and then transfer these transaction details into my monthly Common Cents pages. It's made a huge difference to see at-a-glance where my money is going each month -- and you can't imagine the difference at tax time! All of this tracking takes me maybe 1-2 hours a month, so it's a minimal time investment. And I have no doubt I've saved many thousands of dollars over the years through the discipline and focus over money management that the Common Cents system has instilled. I've recommended it to friends and members of my family for many years; it just works!!

Outstanding Book -- Easy But Incredibly Thorough
After a few failed starts with Excel and even Quicken, the pen and pencil tear-out pages in this book did the trick. The book is so modular and well-designed that you can start whenever and with whatever committment you want.

Do you think that keeping a budget is too hard? Not only is it easy, its especially easy with this book and the relief you feel as you get control of your spending is worth many, many times whatever small effort you put into tracking your expenses.