Personal Home Budget
Calculator and Interactive Analysis
Examples – Tutorial

Now comes the time to look at more major changes. Instead of cutting so many daily items you think about changing to a cheaper car. Make the car payment $500, which may also lower auto insurance to $100. Move the ring item to the paid by cash column, put back your cable entry $200 for some entertainment items. If you want more of the other item you cut the car payment down to $400. Now you have one complimentary message about paying down your debt, but another about living beyond your means and negative cash flow. The program reports this because the only reason for paying down debt is the cash from gifts. Imagine now that you get a $350/month raise at work. Readjust all figures to reflect this new income instead of the family gifts and you will just get a good job message.

I would find an outcome like this quite usual; a person starts by not understanding what they spend and discovers that a combination of reducing a major bill and cutting some smaller daily items balances their budget. In other cases where nothing can be cut it may be that a spouse has to begin working or someone needs to take a second or third job. In rare cases the only choice may be a move to a cheaper house or cheaper city.

For retirement budget calculation start by going to our retirement calculator page and figure out how much you need to save for retirement. Then come back to the budget page and make sure your existing budget account for all items just as in the debtor example above. Once you have the real picture of what your current spending patterns are you can proceed to plan your future personal budget. When engaging in the future plan you will try to include line items for savings and/or retirement that add up to the level suggested by the retirement calculator.

Good luck with the calculation, analysis and planning of your personal home budgets!