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If your goals are considered the destination (like early retirement, a brand new car, that dream vacation), consider your spending budget to be the roadmap or GPS program. Without this you might still reach your destination, but it’ll take you a great deal longer to get there. I realize you might be thinking a budget is just too tedious and not worth the effort and hard work. But managed correctly, you will only need to commit a couple of minutes every week on your budget. And the benefits are immense: Always know where you are with your income and costs; Less stress, know where your money is going and just how much you have left over; Monitor and reach goals. In the end, you’re deciding to manage your income, not to let your income manage you.

 There are quite a few tools and free budget software readily available to help you create a spending plan. My personal preference is Excel. I use the zero-sum budgeting method. This method accounts for each and every dollar of income and calls for adjusting some component of the budget downward for each and every other component that requires to be adjusted upward.