What is the best way to monitor your finances and budget properly?

Best way is to reduce your expenses or increase your incomes. Succesful savers do not use budgets. Below are some ideas to reduce your expenses--the easiest way to save:

You need to reduce your expenses or increase your income. Reducing expenses works best for me. The biggest ways you can do this are in expense categories that are recurring--those you must pay every month that represent a big part of your income. The quickest to address are downsize your car expenses ASAP. You can do this by selling what have at top price as listed on KBB.com private party value. If you take your time selling you should be able to get "Private Party" value for your car. Then plan to buy a lower cost, reliable used car that Consumer Reports rates as most reliable. That way you can minize your repair costs--this is typically a huge ongoing expense for most people. I have four older cars that are of these types that Consumer Reports recommends most reliable: Honda civic and Odyssey, Ford escort and Suburu (mine has 284,000 miles on it). Also, these cars get good gas mileage. Another priority when you buy to help you save $. When you buy use KBB.com and try to find cars selling for well under the Private Party value. I always buy well used cars this way. I wait until I see one advertised well below the private party value, then I call asap, give seller a $50 deposit and write up a contract I will buy it subject to my mechanic finding no major problems. You want to buy an older car for cash (like $1,500) so you don't have to pay any collission or other extra insurance and that reduces your expenses more. I have a Ford Escort wagon (I like wagons and vans because cops pull you over less on these family cars--we have way too many cops, not that I get tickets. But I digress . . .) I bought my Ford Escort wagon for $1,500 five years ago and it has 180,000, miles and looks great, drives like a dream and has had the lowest repair cost of any car I owned. That is my dream car because you can buy them so cheap, about 1,000 for a 1993 easy. Then be sure you shope insurance coverage among various companies--Geico tends to have cheap coverage--to get lowest cost insurance. If you own a home, you can do that same idea by looking for a bargain house. With the depressed market this is a great time to buy a fixer upper well below market to reduce your housing expenses asap. Sell your current home at market rate. If you rent, you need to own because you reduce your expenses by deducting the payment from your taxes. If your credit score is above 500 you should be able to get a loan or find a lender who can help you get your credit score up. By the way, better to buy one of those well used cars with a loan to reduce your car expenses. In general you need to become a serious bargain buyer on quality cars and on houses. You can find bargain houses on the HUD website of foreclousres using a realtor. Your husband sounds like he could do the fixing up and you could immediatly buy equity and build your wealth. Just be sure to bid way low on HUD foreclosures--realtors will suggest you bid too high. Be cheap, cheap, cheap and you will reduce your monthly expenses on these things.

One other point, if you find yourself overspending on consumer stuff you buy, you need to get self control. Best way to do this is not a budget but fasting. Start skipping a meal and then work up to where you skip food one day per week. I fast a day a week regularly and am unbelievalbe disciplined. I must be because I provide for a family of 6: with 5 older girls, two in college, etc. Talk about expensive! But I never buy anything in a store on impulse because fasting has trained me to be way disciplined.

Zig Ziglar said if you will be hard on yourself life will be alot easier on you.

This is a very common problem. The answer is actually very simple, but it does require a little bit of a intiative and discipline on your part.

Essentially what you need to do is make a list of everything that you spend money on. Figure it out on a monthly basis. Group that spending into high level categories. Now make a plan that you will not spend more than what you've planned for each category. As time goes on, you can adjust the category amounts to suit you.

That's a *really* high level overview. There's a good article at http://budgeting123.com/easy-personal-budget that you can check out for more information. There's other good information there as well.

As someone that has been using a budget for many years now, I can tell you that it is a very rewarding experience. Good luck and I hope you find something that works for you.

There are two software programs that get rave reviews: Quicken and Microsoft Money. Pardon the pun but you'll be glad you have "clicked" with one of them! Try the free online trials and if you agree they will help you, they will be worth the investment. You can also pick up older versions on Ebay or other discount sources but try them first.

Put a sturdy envelope or one of those index card boxes in your vehicle........spend the month of January getting receipts for EVERYTHING......at the end of the month......organize your receipts.....necessary vs. frivolous.......then February is the month you decide to reduce your frivolous spending by at least 30% and your necessary by 10%......at the end of February you will have a true understanding of what income is needed to live and how much is wasted......

once you've identified that amount......March 31 you will have a deposit of that amount into your savings account....and each month/week after....good luck

Get a copy of Quicken 2007. Quicken has better reporting capability than MS Money IMO. You can track your spending, cash flow, budgeting and download all your bank statements, stock info, 401K, IRA to get a total picture of your net worth.

P.S. My wife loves to watch our net worth increase each year.

I have a saving & checking acct @ 2 banks. I put about 10% of my $ in one bank ( I pretend it doesn't excist at all) and use the 2nd bank for my living expenses and bills.

Always save money, you'll never know when you'll have an emergengy ( medical, car, etc)