Personal Home Budget
Calculator and Interactive Analysis
Examples – Tutorial

Tom thinks he has it now and hits the “Calculate and Analyze” button again. It still says he has not accounted for all his expenses. Now Tom must really rack his brain, where else did his money go? Wait, that was the month his friend had a big party and Tom bought the kegs because his friend had rebuilt his transmission. $240 goes, well where? The whole concept makes Tom think about budget items both for that month and in general. If you really want to look at one month and make sure things balance you can put the $240 under auto maintenance, but Tom wants to have an idea of the year. This item does make him think about other items, some months he has car items, sometimes house items. He enters $240 into “Other House Expenses” line, reflecting $100 for car maintenance, $40 for oil changes and other minor items, and $100 for apartment things he did.

Now he was on a roll and adds $25 for clothes, $25 for sports tickets, and $25 for dental (You may put this under dental insurance or other). Many items you will pay for all in one month, but in any given month some of these things will occur. Tom recalculates again.

Finally the warning about not accounting for all expenses no longer appears. Tom finally has a real picture of where he spends his money. He looks back at the piece of paper where he wrote his original estimate of what he thought he spent. He realizes that not understanding where his money went and overspending lead to the root of his financial trouble.

Now pay attention to any other budget warnings. Tom has three, he “lives beyond his means”, has “negative cash flow” and is “getting deeper into debt”. While Tom doesn’t like what it says, these represent just what he feared. In the next phase the budget program may be used to make proposed adjustments in the personal budget.