Rec’d a question about a good budgeting tool. I contacted my friend, Cristy Cash, for suggestions. Cristy is the Director of Counseling and Education at Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Central Oklahoma. Thought with the new year, some of these tools would be helpful to you and/or your friends. Here’s what she said:
“Well I have a combination of tools that I like.
1. Take Control of Your Money packet: the calendar let’s you plot out your paydays and your bills so you get a visual view of your monthly cash flow.
2. My-Monthly-Budget-template is a way to plot out your expenses and make easy changes to experiment with different bill amounts. This can serve as her master budget. To find this spreadsheet: Scroll down http://cccsok.org/forms/
3. WEEKLY Cashflow Spreadsheet: It would be AMAZING if she would take a weekly view to her finances and project each week’s income and expenses out as far as she can:
Project out the weekly income and expenses to find areas she may fall short or end up with a surplus for savings. As she completes each week, change the numbers to what she REALLY spent and earned. It only takes about 30 minutes per week to update this!To find this spreadsheet: Scroll down http://cccsok.org/forms/
4. I also recommend automatic savings transferred directly from checking – small reasonable amounts that she can just set and forget!”
Feel free to share.
You can reach Cristy at:
CCCS of Central Oklahoma
3230 N. Rockwell ● Bethany , OK 73008
405.384.3477 | ccash | CCCSOk.org