You are immediately given a great looking, easy to use straight forward budget page, and you can also generate monthly reports to your e-mail for safe keeping before end-of-month closing and starting a new month. The budget categories are not user modifiable but the set is very rich and flexible covering just about any practical category plus a few catch all miscellaneous category, not a bad deal for a free utility. And there is an instant super easy to use online users billboard that holds discussions among users and the developer too.

The website is at:
http://www.myexp.org/OOTD_gate.php

Happy budgeting.

I found the most difficult part of budgeting is have a plan and stick to it. Yes, both “have a plan” and “stick to it” are not easy. Though I use credit card to pay almost all purchases as well, I found it’s hard to figure out how much we are going to spend next week. Often times, I don’t know how much each item costs and how much I have spent, though by looking at the gross number, I know we didn’t overspend or underspend too much from week to week. But still there’s room for improvement. I admit I am not a good planner in how to spend our money

To answer your “Why?” question: because planning and sticking to a plan greatly increase your chances of reaching your goals. It also helps us see where we make mistakes, and can then correct them.

It isn’t a strict, “must stick to every penny” budget. We use our AMEX Blue Cash card for 99% of purchases, so if the grocery bill is $56 this week instead of $55, we spend the $56 and cut back the next week.