Budgeting

 Dr. Lynn Richardson, a financial coach for the stars, suggests that you do several things to improve your finances.  Some of the suggestions are simple, for example, spending less than you make.  My late brother-in-law, Levorn Sanders, used to say, “You’ve got to watch your money, because it can’t watch itself.”  I would suggest that you make out a budget to help you with this. Make a list of every bill you have and allot money you pay to each bill.  When you have done this, take your net take home pay and see how much money you have left over.  Does this amount match up with what you have extra at the end of the month? If it doesn’t, you should consider trying to track your daily spending.

Tracking my daily spending has always been hard for me. I forget to log in an amount, or I draw money out and forget where I spent it.  To fix this I tried a free app called Mint. This app was supposed to track my every withdrawal from my accounts and also give me financial advice. The issue I ran into with this app is that it does not give timely updates to your spending. It also had a lot of advertisements for credit cards, which will be another future blog.

The next free budgeting app I am going to try is one recommended by Dave Ramsey. For those who have never heard of Dave Ramsey, he is a famous financial radio host and founder of Financial Peace University. Dave Ramsey recommends the app, EveryDollar.  I will try this app for a month and leave a review for those who are curious about the app but hesitant to use it.

By: Natricia A. Edwards 

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