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A budget planner is something that is needed if you’re one of those people that have credit card bills and plenty of other debt adding up more and more even though you had the thought that you’d be making enough to be able to pay it off.

The honest truth with this thought process is that you’re likely making enough to pay for all of your bills but the problem with that is and the reason you’re still in debt is that you’re spending way too freely beyond your means. There are ways that you are able to make sure that you don’t continue down this path or make sure that this doesn’t happen to you to begin with.

Find Statements

To begin you’re going to need to locate the following three things:

1. Bank statements
2. Credit card bills
3. Any other receipts

If you haven’t kept or can’t find all of your credit card and bank statements you can find them online or through calling and using the automated system. If worse comes to worse knowing this information is important so call and talk to a representative for information. If you’re going to be honest with yourself and create an honest budget you need to make sure that you don’t forget any of the important items.

Monthly Expenses

You’ll need to make a complete list of your monthly expenses. You’ll want to list out into two separate categories:

1. Fixed
2. Variable

A fixed expense is something like your rent or mortgage that you’re spending the same amount on every month or with very little fluctuation.

A variable expense are going to be those things that are going to fluctuate and are some of those luxuries you probably really don’t need to have/do if you’re trying to make sand stick to a budget. Those will be things like eating out, vacations, gifts, etc… You’re also going to want to include any of your revolving debts like your credit cards as these are a monthly payment. Since it’s revolving and fluctuating this is why it’s in the variable and not the fixed column.

There are going to be things like your gas that can really go into either category. You might even want to list them in both with the amount of money you’re going to spend in gas to do things like driving to get your groceries in the fixed column and how much you’ll spend on gas to do the luxury things into your variable list.

Monthly Income

List out everything that you make in a month, if you’re a two income household make sure that you put both. This is a very easy thing to do as most people only have one source of income per person. If you’re someone that works seasonally or it does vary try to average it out to where it would be a steady monthly figure.

Make Comparisons

Now you’ll need to add up both of your category columns and make the comparisons to the income and if you’re a person whose income adds up to more than both of the categories together than you’re probably not in the position where you need some of the following advice.

It’s more likely that you’re going to end up where your monthly income is going to be more than your fixed but it won’t be enough to cover your variable income as well. This is going to be where the budgeting is really going to help you out.

The rest will fall into the last option where your monthly income isn’t enough to cover either column than you’re in severe trouble because you’re not making enough to even cover your necessities. In these instances you’ll need to start looking at moving in with your parents for awhile, getting a roommate, look at moving in with a friend. There are also the options of some government aid programs if you qualify.

We can make the assumption that you’re in the middle category as that is where most people fall. This is the point where you’re going to make your budget and even more importantly know how to stick with it. You can compare budgeting to having to go on a diet, if you try to do something drastic most likely they are going to fail in the end and you’ll be in a much worse position than you were in before. You want to make sure that you transition and make your changes slowly as you’re going to want to make sure you can stick to them for the long run.

Fixed Expenses

You’ll take your fixed expenses away from your income and then see how much money that you have remaining after. Now look at what you have with your variable expenses and there is not much of a gap things are closed up pretty close. If you have quite a lot left than you’ll need to start to take some small steps to get that number eventually down to zero.

Variable Expenses

With your column of variable expenses you’ll want to break it down further into two separate sub categories. You could label these as the can live without and really like. The nice thing would be is if your income matches up with your really like list and then if that’s the case you really just need to make your budget and stick with it.

If you are still far away from your goal of meeting income and variable in the middle than it’s really time to be honest and realize what you need to change to make your budget get back into balance with your leftover income. Ask yourself some questions like do you really need all of the leftover luxury items in your list, if you think you do are they important enough to you to look at getting a second job or at least a part-time seasonal.

If you are open and honest and most of all realistic with yourself you’re going to make sure to stay on track. Focus, focus, focus and make sure that you keep your eyes on the prize. That prize is your financial viability.