Quicken 2015 For Dummies

Chapter 3

Maximum Fun, Maximum Profits

In This Chapter

Deciding whether you need a budget

Discovering tips for personal and business budgets

Setting up and reviewing a budget

I don’t think that a budget amounts to financial handcuffs, and neither should you. A budget is really a plan that outlines the way you need to earn and spend your money to achieve the maximum amount of fun — or the way a business needs to earn and spend its money to make the most profit.

Should You Even Bother with a Budget?

A budget, as you probably know, is a list of the ways you earn and spend your money. If you create a good, workable category list with Quicken (see Chapter 2), you’re halfway to a good, solid budget. (In fact, the only step left is to specify how much you earn in each income category and how much you spend in each expense category.)

Does everybody need a budget? No, of course not. Maybe at your house, you’re already having a bunch of fun with your money. Maybe in your business, you make money so effortlessly that you really don’t plan your income and outgo.

For the rest of us, though, a budget improves our chances of getting to wherever it is we want to go financially. In fact, I’ll stop ...