We wrote previously about financial New Year’s Resolutions, suggesting that you might want to make preparations for setting some well ahead of the New Year. Unless you have some fortuitous financial accident, like an unexpected and large inheritance that comes through, or winning the lottery, to reach any financial goal you will have to set some sort of plan that lays out how much money you put away each month, and you need to set a plan like this for each of your goals. Then, you need to set up a budget, that is, if you wish to ensure that you actually will put the money away for your goals. Only then do you know how much you can actually save, because savings come only after expenses are paid, and you should treat your contributions to financial goals as if they are expenses in your budget. (Sure, some goals act as savings, like saving to buy a car, or a new house, or saving up for retirement. But it’s only if you regularly contribute to these goals by setting them up in your weekly, monthly, or annual budgets that you will ever reach these goals at all.)

To be sure, there are many free budget planners available on the internet. Just google “free budget planner” and you will find a bunch of them. My wife and I were fortunate - we were able to develop a budget planner ourselves that kind of “talks” to us. We’ve made it available on the internet for you to use, free of charge. You can find our free budget planner here. When we set up this planner we wanted to be sure that no one would have to sift through a bunch of tables and charts just to find out how to save money, or to see in what categories he or she spends too much. The free budget planner at vilkri.com gives us an objective view of our budget, “talking” our way through it by using mostly text. We stuck with it because the plain English style of operation, and the relative effortlessness of using internet-based expense recording really appealed to us, and made our budget easy to follow. (But just in case someone out there doesn’t like having to go to the internet to record expenses every time, we’re about to add a pen-and-paper tool for you to carry around with you in your wallet to track your expenses.)

No matter what budget planner you use, I strongly suggest that you pick one – and soon if you want to reach any financial goals. I would also strongly suggest that you get set up with a budget planner ahead of the New Year, for instance, today! Setting up a budget, recording your expenses, and striving to spend less than you make is the first step to reach any financial goal. Let me end this post right now and save you reading time that you can put to better use by looking for a budget planner, choosing one, and going forward to a great financial start to the New Year.