How I did it: i have a friend who's really good with money, so i asked him to help me out. he said that he has a spreadsheet set up with a page for each month. each line down is a day and across is different categories in which he spent money (food, gas, clothes, school, insurance, etc.). the last column is where you put in how much you get paid. just fill out the spreadsheet with the different dollar amounts on each day. he set it up to calculate everything for you. it tells you how much of a surplus you have each month, so you can kinda see how much you can put into savings and stuff each month. i don't know if i explained it very well. sorry if i didn't. i've noticed that writing everything down into categories made me more aware of what i spent money on and i can definitely see some habits changing.

Lessons & tips: writing it down really helps. it makes you more aware of where your money goes and what you can cut back on.

Resources: excel program and a friend who knows how to put it to use.

Jan 23, 2009, 03:47PM PST | 1 comment | 1 cheer