My son ran out of money even though he kept saying he wasn’t spending it. We told him this happens to most people when they all of the sudden make much more than they had made before.  It’s easy to lose track of how much you are spending. So we had him print out the last three weeks of spending.

Then he added up categories like gas, eating out and computer stuff.

He was shocked by how much those $10 here, $20 there’s added up to.

Next it was time for a simple, simple budget. The less categories the better, so he had money he owes his grandparents for the truck, gas, food, savings (which wasn’t even on the radar before), computer, car insurance, phone and misc.

He figured out how much to put in the categories and decided he can’t eat out more than once or twice a week and definitely can’t be driving all over in that big truck. And his misc. dwindled way down.

He has his budget up at his computer and also in a notepad in his car. He writes down what he spends under the different category columns in the notepad so he knows when he has to stop spending.

How’s your budget?