Favorite Budgeting Tools?

NavyMom77

After seeing some of the budgeting posts in another discussion, it got me thinking - what methods or tools for budgeting have you found to be really helpful or successful for your family? We've never set a firm budget or a plan since getting married 3 years ago, but have managed to build some savings and pay off a lot of debt. I'd like to take a more proactive approach - I know we could be doing better, especially with a car purchase coming up in the next few months and the need to beef up our retirement savings. I've been playing with Mint the past few days. What's worked for you to set a realistic budget, stick to it and work towards your financial goals?

jf198400

I use mint.com I really like that I can structure my own categories for everything.

jobiann

We use Quicken and we have also used Dave Ramsey in the past, but I found Quicken was just easier. We follow the Dave Ramsey principles as we took the class at our church a few years ago. It's really helped us pay off debt and keep on track with our savings goals. We stopped using plastic and use cash now, DH and I both get a weekly "allowance" of cash so we know how much money we can spend and when we are capped out. 

sugarbear0524

I echo taking Financial Peace University as a couple. It will help you develop a plan you can both agree on and help you get on the same page financially. We use his budget software as well. We will be debt free except for our mortgage by the end of the year.

mae0111

We also use giant excel spreadsheets.  I use it to balance my checkbook, schedule all payments from different paychecks, create broad budgets and track to them, and track our overall net worth.  We just met with a financial advisor, and having all of this together made our meeting worthwhile and our "homework" easy.

jlaOK

We follow Dave Ramsey's plan and using cash has been a great help for us to meet our financial goals.  With cash there is no looking at your online bank information and wondering where all your money went.  It's a lot easier to spend less when the cash is in your hand.