To account for everything will take you a few hours to plan a budget, especially if it is the first time you are trying to do so. But that is only at the beginning because once you have a system set up then you will find it easier to make changes along the way.

Here are a few tips that we hope will be able to help you in planning a budget.

List your income

Be sure that you take into account your income received from all sources. This should include paychecks you receive from all regular monthly jobs. If there are two incomes in a household, even if most of one income goes to pay the bills, be sure to include both incomes in your budget. If you are a single parent who is receiving alimony or child support payments you should include this in your budget as part of your regular monthly income.

Define your expenses

Your expenses are whatever you spend for the month and these include rent/mortgage, utilities, car payment, insurance and credit cards. There may be other expenses too and these should also be included in your budget when you add up your total expenses for the month.

Your budget is now underway

After you have added up all your expenses and subtracted them from the total of your income you will end up with either a positive or a negative number.

If at the end of this process you have a positive number, then that is a good sign. This does not mean that you do not need to make a budget, but it is a clear indication that you are heading in the right direction.

If you have a negative number it indicates that you are over spending - spending more than you are making.

This may not include any unnecessary spending but it may be the reason why you have credit card bills. A negative number means that you have to make a solid effort to reduce your spending so that it falls within your income.

Be sure to examine your credit card bills

The interest rates on credit cards are outrageously high. It will cost you a great deal if at the end of the month you maintain a balance on your bill.

It is important that you do not fall behind on a single payment on your credit card, because the finance charges and the interest that are compounded daily are extremely high.

If you are using your credit card to pay for things you need such as groceries or car repair and you also need to use it to pay for unexpected bills then, when planning your budget, you should think about starting an emergency fund for the unexpected bills. This is money that could be available for use in case any emergency comes up.

Treat your emergency fund like any another savings account or an investment account. Make sure that you include monthly contributions to each of these accounts.

Set an amount for your emergency fund. When it exceeds that limit, that money can be used to invest in IRAs and CDs .

The emergency fund money will be there to use when necessary.

Once you have set up your categories with a spending limit for each category, and all the numbers are in place, you can begin to put the budget into effect.

To help you keep your spending within the budgeted limits some people withdraw cash from the bank and separate it into envelopes for each category.

When you have spent the money from an envelope, it means that the money for that category is gone.

Remember planning a budget is actually a plan to help you manage your money wisely. From month to month it may be necessary for you to make some changes in your budget. If each month you can save five or ten dollars it means that you have five or ten dollars more than you had before. Success can come to you with small steps at a time.