Budgeting worksheets

With credit being available so freely these days, it is not surprising that many people spend more than they can afford to. Budgeting is an exercise that can help a person relieve financial stress by keeping track of income and expenses instead of falling into the abyss of debt. Budgeting software helps an individual spend his or her money wisely. Budgeting worksheets are an integral part of the budgeting process. They help in allocating money into various categories and also help in augmenting savings. Let us try and analyze the advantages of using budgeting worksheets even for planning travel and weddings. We take a look at zero-based budgeting and how it works.

Budgeting worksheets

A budgeting worksheet helps you understand your income and expenses. Listing out your expenses, fixed and variable is the first step towards prudent budgeting. Maintaining budgeting worksheets over a period of time will help you understand how much money you earn and spend. Budgeting worksheets are available aplenty on online financial management web sites.

Some of them can be downloaded for free. You can make use of these printable budget worksheets to balance your finances. Though some people prefer to create their budgets on paper, electronic budgeting worksheets or budgeting software can help you in decision making too. You can make 'What if' projections using interactive budgeting software and even print them out to maintain records. When planning your next travel getaway, you can utilize specialized budgeting software and financial worksheets to estimate your projected expenses.

A travel budget needs to account for passports, visas, wardrobe and personal items, transportation costs and accommodation expenses. When estimating your travel expenses for budgeting, don't forget to add costs of activities such as golf and riding. You need to plan for your meals and entertainment expenditure too.

A wedding budgeting worksheet is yet another handy budgeting software that helps you to plan for your special day. Wedding budgeting software makes provisions for the ceremony expenses such as the location rentals, music, food, cake, favors, decoration and photography. You have to estimate the expenditure on your attire and jewelry.

Personal budgeting software

Personal budgeting software can be used to gain control over your current finances. But more importantly, such software for personal budgeting can go a long way in a sustained effort to build personal wealth. The advantages of utilizing personal budgeting software and keeping track of your finances are many:

• You become aware of the impact of every spending decision.
  
  
• Budgeting software packages are designed to help you take control of financial situations for different time frames.
  
  
• You become aware of your overspending habits. It becomes easier to track and estimate your spending patterns.
  
  
• You can effectively manage your debt, be it credit card debt or mortgage repayments.
  
  
• Use of budgeting software brings to light areas where you can reduce expenses and control spending.
  

Zero based budgeting

Zero-based budgeting involves creating a financial program ground up each financial year. This method of budgeting involves justifying all expenditure for each new period. This is contrary to the policy of only explaining expenditures that are in excess of the previous year's expenditure. Zero-based budgeting is successfully followed by many organizations and is used for governmental planning and budgeting of funds.

Zero-based budgeting ensures need-based and efficient allocation of resources. This type of budgeting pattern necessitates implementation of cost effective methods of operations and detects inflated budgets. But zero-based budgeting restrains decision-making on account of the necessity to account for every detail of expenditure. Unless the managers are sufficiently trained, zero-based budgeting cannot be enforced effectively in any organization.