Of course I’m biased towards using Excel as your budgeting solution. I sell a product designed just for that! Aside from the obvious play on words in the title, there are certain tips you should be aware of if you really want to Excel your Household Budget. I’m going to outline the five I think are worth keeping in mind.

1. Join budgeting with another habit.
2. Pocket your receipts.
3. Set long-term goals.
4. Set mini goals.
5. Keep it seriously simple

1. Join budgeting with another habit
You might have already used this with some other good habits you’ve wanted to acquire. I do this with budgeting and have found it to be very successful. When I come home in the evenings and check my email I open up the budget and enter any purchases I might have made during the day. I’ll usually yell to my wife (if she’s not right there with me) to see if she made any purchases. The thinking and recording takes about 1 minute.

You’ll want to make sure you associate your budgeting habit with something you already do very regularly - daily if possible. I chose checking my email because I do that every night after dinner, I’m already at the computer, and usually my wife is around if we have to talk about anything to do with the budget.

I don’t think taking a shower is what you’ll want to use unless you use your computer while in the shower…at any rate - one way to Excel your household budget is to solidify that habit of writing down your purchases - whether you use the YNAB set of Personal Budget Excel Spreadsheets or a pencil and paper, to excel, you must record!

2. Pocket your receipts
This is plain and simple. When the cashier asks you to if you want a receipt, say “YES!” Stick it in your pocket. Don’t stick it in your purse. Things get lost in purses. If you want to stick it in your wallet then leave a portion of it sticking pretty far out so you will see it when you take your wallet out of your pocket at night. This isn’t rocket science, but it’s pretty important.

I don’t necessarily use the receipts to record purchases - only on occassion. Really what it helps you do is to remember to budget. At night, when you’re cleaning out your pockets you’ll remember you bought that unhealthy cheeseburger and you’ll record it in the budget. I want to reiterate, whether your household budget is Excel, or a pencil and paper, you must record your purchases!

3. Set long-term goals
A sure fire way to get burned out when trying to do something new is to not have any real direction. If you really want to Excel your household budget then you will have long-term goals in place that will keep you faced in the right direction.

Do you want to have the house paid off? Get rid of credit card debt? Retire early? Retire comfortably? Save for a vacation to Europe? Whatever it may be, long-term goals are essential to the life of your household budget. Excel won’t set your goals for you, you have to do it.

4. Set mini goals
Right along with long-term goals for your family or household budget, excel with some mini goals that are attainable in a very short time frame. Set a goal to have a certain credit card paid off in the next two weeks or two months, save $100 each month, save the money you need to buy that new couch you want - but this time you’ll buy it with cash. Mini goals will keep you motivated and that will be key. Your household budget should motivate you, not make you depressed.

5. Keep it Seriously Simple
This might be the most important aspect if you really want to Excel your household budget. You have to keep it simple! I can’t stress this enough. If your budgeting takes more than 2 hours per month then you’re making it too complicated (unless of course, you love budgeting, and want to spend several hours each month crunching numbers). You’ll need to monitor three aspects of your budget:

* Inflow
* Planning
* Outlfow

Make sure you record every inflow. If you’re familiar with the YNAB system of an Excel Personal Budget then you’ll note there’s room for inflows (Primary & Supplemental). It’s important these are tracked.

With planning, you need to make sure you’re doing it each and every month. My wife and I usually budget on the last Sunday of each month. Sundays are much less hectic and lend themselves well to sitting down and planning the next month’s purchases for a few minutes. The YNAB system’s budgeting page allows you to move down the categories and budget money into each category that will be spent during the coming month. You’ll need to have some sort of planning built into your household budgeting system. As you budget each month, you’ll get faster and faster at it. My wife and I “excel” in this area. It usually takes us about 15 minutes each month.

Finally, you’ll need to watch the Outflow - and that means every single one. If you buy a soda at Wal-Mart for $.25 then you need to record it. The YNAB system’s outflows takes care of expenses. You simply record the date, a short description, and the amount.

In summary, remember to keep things simple. You don’t have to use YNAB or YNAB Pro to budget effectively. However, I personally haven’t seen anything better for effective household budgeting. Excel is an extremely powerful tool if you want to create your own budget also. Feel free to ask me a question about using Excel effectively to set up a household budget.

Okay, okay, I probably started out a bit too harsh with the title of this article. Checkbook Balancing Programs are probably not useless, but they certainly aren’t necessary. Some people get really defensive when I say such things. It’s just the honest truth. As a matter of fact:

You don’t need to balance your checkbook.

Which is why you don’t need a program for checkbook balancing either. Don’t waste your money, and especially, don’t waste your time.

Why Checkbook Balancing is Unnecessary
Several years ago, my wife and I married. At the time, we were both in school full-time, with part-time, low-paying jobs. ‘Tis the life of college students. And when you’re married, even though you’re combining two incomes, you seem to be even poorer.

Since we married we have never, ever, worried about checkbook balancing. And we’ve never overdrafted on our account. Not once. I’m not saying this to brag. I’m just telling you how things developed. At the moment, I’m still in school full-time and working part-time. My wife is taking care of our 8-month old son full-time (she’ll attest to how busy he keeps her!).

So what I’m saying is, it’s not like we’re making a lot of money. As a matter of fact, we’re pretty excited to be graduating in a year to begin making some “real money”. And we don’t balance our checkbook. Checkbook balancing is just not something we worry about. So when I saw a lot of checkbook balancing programs on the internet, I thought I would write a bit on the subject.

Make your time with your finances COUNT!
Not many people enjoy balancing their checkbook. However, everyone likes to have plenty of money in the bank. Nobody likes to pay overdraft charges, and everyone likes a bit of peace and assurance when it comes to personal finances.

How you spend your time in planning your finances is crucial.

Before my wife and I married I recognized that we would need to watch our finances very, very closely. We were going into marriage in love, but broke (we’re still in love, but not broke). I knew that budgeting would be the key to a successful financial situation. I also knew that budgeting would spare our marriage of plenty of stress and headaches when it came to “money discussions.”

I began developing a system of Personal Budget Excel Spreadsheets to help us along our path. As we progressed in our experience managing our finances together, we noticed little things we could do to change and tweak the program. About a year later, I realized that the tweaking was done. What we had was a unique set of inter-related spreadsheets that worked together in such a way that it enabled us to spend a minimal amount of time (1-2 hours per month) budgeting and managing our money. I also noticed that checkbook balancing was not an issue.

A Program for Checkbook Balancing became Useless
Sure, we check our balance online - which takes about thirty seconds. But we just do this to make sure we’re the bank didn’t make any mistake with our money. The system we use, which I’ve affectionately named YNAB (You Need A Budget), has helped us get past so many of the mundane tasks that go along with managing money; the biggest one being balancing a checkbook. Program after program is released that supposedly makes this easier. My system of Personal Budget Excel Spreadsheets makes it unnecessary.

Take a look around the site, and please don’t miss the Four Steps to Cash Flow Management as outlined on the main page. This visit just might change how you manage your finances forever - and for the better. Read carefully and keep an open mind.

If you really want to understand all of your alternatives to student loan conslidation, you just might want to read a bit further. Chances are, you’ve been looking for an alternative to go ahead and consolidate the student loan you’ve been staring in the face for the past - well - long time.

Be careful

Remember the root of the word consolidation: con. I’m not going to pretend and say that I can foresee every situation. But I just might have an idea of what you’re thinking when you go looking around for an alternative to paying the student loan you took out so long ago.

Why did you take out the loan in the first place? Were you really out of money? Or did you just need some “extra” cash? The lending institutions wanted you to take out that student loan, and now they want you to consolidate that student loan. They want you to think there is no alternative.

Well, there is.

Simply pay off the loan. Bite the bullet and pay off the loan. On top of student loans you probably have credit card debt, car debt, and a mortgage to boot. You are up to your ears in debt. So your logical alternative to paying the debt, is to conslidate the loan into one easy, albeit large, loan.

You are simply treating the symptom. Your problem is not your loan. Your problem is your spending. And until you get your spending under control, you’ll continue looking for that student loan consolidation opportunity.

Or have I misunderstood? Were you searching for an alternative to consolidating your student loan? If so, then I apologize for assuming the worst of you. I praise your courage to avoid the consolidation opportunities out there. Go ahead and take a look at some of them. They want your money. They want to get you on their “special” program. They make me laugh.

The alternative you’re looking for? You don’t need a consolidation program. You don’t need any more debt. You don’t need to make more money. You need a budget.