The “B” word sends a chill down the spine of many people. It evokes fears of never being able to do anything with your money. Which is somehow locked into this budget and cannot be used for anything else. In fact, that is not the case. A family budget is simply a way to see where all your money is going. Most importantly, provide you with a plan that tells your money what it’s supposed to do, whether it’s paying bills, going into savings or retirement accounts, or buying food.

Every successful company or person has a money plan. This is what a budget is, a plan for your money, that tells you what to do instead of telling you what to do. With a budget, you can set and achieve your financial goals. You can also get a better view of what your money can do for you now and in the future.

With a family budget, you can create a spending and savings plan that sets aside a certain amount of money each month for known and unexpected expenses. It will also give you a good record of your monthly expenses based on the expenses for each month.

The first thing to do when setting a budget is to find out what your monthly income is. If you have a salaried job, this is easy because it is a fixed amount each pay period. If you work on commission or are self-employed, this may be more of an estimate. Write this number at the top of your budget sheet.

Now comes the fun part. Start writing down all of your monthly expenses and include even the smallest expenses. There are certain fixed expenses like the mortgage, the car payments, the insurance that you have to take every month. You will also need to keep track of expenses that are more fluid, such as food, gas, clothing, and entertainment.

If you start by subtracting your fixed expenses from your income, what you have left should be budgeted for to pay for expenses that seem to change from month to month. Once you’ve finished allocating money to all of your expenses, what you are left with is positive or negative cash flow. The great thing about a budget is that you can quickly scan what you have written and see exactly where the money is going. This is very useful if you live from paycheck to paycheck because you can probably find some areas where you can easily cut back or skip them to leave you with extra cash at the end of each month.

Here are four quick tips to help you get your budget on track.

1. Learn to Manage Money – Successfully dealing with money is 80% behavior. Most people work for their money instead of their money working for them.

2. Make a plan: A budget is a money plan. Most people would never dream of building a house without a plan. In fact, almost every activity in life involves some kind of plan. But our most important asset, our money, is left free from plans, and when we run out or are burdened with debt, we don’t know why.

3. Needs and wants – know the difference. Needs are basic things like a house with a roof, food, clothing (in moderation), transportation to go to work. You don’t need a $ 400 payment plus car payment to get to work or a $ 100 pair of designer jeans. You may want them, but you don’t.

4. Be a little frugal – This does not mean living in a cave. You can still have fun, but make sure it fits within your budget.

Creating a family budget is the first step in managing your finances. You will have to be patient with the process because it will probably not work the first 2-3 months you do. But stay diligent and around the third month you will start to see patterns that will help you refine your budget into a financial plan that will put you on the right track.