Home Budgeting with a Budgeting Tool

Home budgeting is important to managing your credit. Managing your credit is important to your credit score. Your credit score is important to living in the United States. Yes, it's a circle, but it doesn't have to be a vicious one.

The staff here at Credit Cards for America has developed a Home Budgeting Tool that you can download free of charge and use year after year after year. Two versions of the tool are available for download and both versions include instructions for using it.

One version uses Microsoft Excel and is backward compatible to Excel 97. The other is an html format and can be used with your Internet Browser. Note: the html version is a big file and may operate a little more slowly. Whichever version you use, just remember to save it after you have made changes.

You simply begin by adding your current checking account balance in the field for "Beginning Checking Account Balance." It's prepopulated with 1000. Just change the 1000 to a WHOLE DOLLAR amount (no decimals) that indicates what you currently have in that account.

The shaded blue area is automatically calculated every time you make an entry and allows you to see the significance of that entry on your overall finances. Below the shaded blue area is the Income section where you add your sources of income. You can change the column names to match your personal situation.

Naturally, after the income comes the expenses, and this is a large section that includes Payroll Deductions, Home Expenses, Auto Expenses, Medical Expenses, Living Expenses, Debt Expenses (including credit cards), Savings, and a large Miscellaneous section.

All you have to remember is to save your file on a regular basis as you make changes. The tool performs all the calculations for you.

Why are we charging for this? Other than to say we're good guys, let's just say that we appreciate you visiting our website and we hope you will make it your first source of information when you need information or products concerning your credit.

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