Budgeting for the Broke

Photo provided by cohdra at morguefile.com

In my search for tips on budgeting, I came across an article that gave several very good tips that those of us who are broke can employ to create a workable budget. I decided to share a few of the tips here and encourage you to read the article in its entirety at the link provided.

Take Stock and Prioritize

One of the first steps is to prioritize your bills so the most important bills, like housing and transportation, are paid first. You need a place to live and a way to get to work more than you need cable. Another important step is to make sure that you know the due dates of all the bills you owe and the minimum payments on all the credit cards.

Negotiate Rates

Try contacting your credit card companies and see if they will reduce the rate you are being charged on your cards. A reduced rate could help pay that balance down a lot faster. This is one I haven’t tried yet and will look into soon.

Review the Past Spending

Go over bank statements for the past month or two and evaluate where the money is really going. Often we think we know where the money is going, but doing an evaluation can help see where the spending is really happening. This would help identify what expenses can be cut to help pay off debt.

These are a few tips I will be studying as I build my budget.

Next Steps:

Continue developing the budget
Get real about the debt

Link:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/budgeting-youre-broke-080000891.html