You Need A Budget Pro - Personal Finance Software Program

Are you sick of debt but unsure of the exact steps you need to take to turn your financial life around?

Your in luck because, there is a system that has worked for me and by many others that were in similar financial situations as yourself. By following the 4 rules below, you can turn your current gloomy financial outlook into a bright and exciting future.

Imagine being free of your money worries. It's possible if you follow the steps below.

Step 1: Stop Living Paycheck To Paycheck

Wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to constantly countdown the days till payday each month? To not have to wait for that next check in order to pay your bills?

It is possible!

The first step you must implement in order to change your current financial situation, is to stop living paycheck to paycheck.

How is this done?

This is done, by creating a one month buffer for yourself. As you begin to set up your budget you will create a buffer category. Any money not assigned to a bill or debt reduction will be placed in this buffer. The goal is to build your buffer up to the same amount you would normally make in one month's worth of pay.

Once you have built up your buffer, the current month's bills will be paid from last month's income (the buffer).

Think about that for a second.

At first it will be hard building up the buffer and will take a little time to do. But once you get your budget in check as I'll talk about in Step 2 in will become second nature.

By paying your bills from last month's income, you have eased the stress of living paycheck to paycheck.

You no longer have to wait for your paycheck to get your current bills paid since the money you will be using to pay them will be coming from money you made in the previous month.

Step 2: Give Every Dollar A Job

Step 2 goes hand and hand with Step 1. Every dollar you make each month must be assigned a job.

As you start to assign each dollar a job, you will increase your awareness of exactly what you are spending your money on.

Do you really need that much money in the clothing category? Do you need that much in the restaurant/fast food category?

Probably not...and by creating your budget at the beginning of the month you will begin to see where you are wasting money that could be used for something that will actually help improve your financial situation.

After you have assigned the necessary amount to categories such as bills and food, you can then start to build your buffer that we discussed in step 1, with any money remaining.

Step 3: Save For A Rainy Day

Most people have those once or twice a year lump payments such as insurance, Christmas shopping, etc...

You know the feeling. December comes around and you need to buy presents for family and friends, but you have no idea where that money is going to come from. You resort to putting them on your credit card which just digs you deeper in to debt.

In this step we are going to discuss how to easily prepare yourself for those payments.

Lets say you have an auto insurance payment due in 6 months for $600. Rather than wait for the month it is due to figure out how you are going to scrape the $600 together, with this system you will add it to your budget now. In your budget you will create a category for "auto insurance". You know that you have 6 months until it is due. This works out to $100 a month. Now when you set up your budget at the beginning of each month you will assign $100 to your auto insurance category. When your auto insurance bill comes due in 6 months you will use the money you have budgeted and set aside to pay the bill.

This same technique can be applied for things like Christmas presents, auto repairs and home repairs.

Step 4: Roll With The Punches

We are not machines. I know that even with a budget there are times when you are going to overspend in one category or another. It's part of life. Using this system we have discussed, it is ok. Just roll with the punches!

This is how it works. Lets say you have a "dining out" category and you set aside $60 each month that can be used to go out to eat. Well, this month you actually went over by $10 and spent $70. Don't worry your plan didn't fail and you don't have to go back and redo your budget.

This is a simple set back and it can easily be corrected in the following month.

Here is how.

When sitting down next month to create your budget, you know you went over by $10 in the "dining out" category the previous month. So what you do, is deduct $10 dollars from the normal amount budgeted each month for this category. So in the current month instead of having $60 to spend on "dining out" you only have $50.

You are now back on budget!

The four steps above are very powerful. Many have used these exact steps to get out of debt and create substantial savings.

To get the full benefit of this system will want to keep track of your budgeting and spending. You can use a pen and paper, a personal finance spreadsheet or a budgeting software program installed on your computer. I prefer the computer program, but it is really up to personal preference as to what will work best for you.

Now, if you are looking for magical software that is suddenly going to make your debt disappear and your savings increase overnight - then I'm sorry to tell you that it doesn't exist, but you probably already know that. So, after trying pretty much every personal financial software out there (I was very much in debt after all), I can only recommend the next best thing

Download a Free Trial of The You Need A Budget Personal Finance Software Program

After the trial, if you decide to continue using the software you will have to pay a small one time fee of $49.95. This really is a small price to pay for what this software is going to do for your future.

This may actually be the first expense you are going to make that is actually going to help decrease your debt.

Now, it's not quite magical software, but it is pretty damn close. Of all the personal finance software I've PERSONALLY tried and tested, YNAB shined brighter than the rest. It covers pretty much all the steps we've talked about above and if you're looking for a "one stop solution" to getting out of debt, then I highly recommend you check it out.

I understand that when you are already in a financial hole it's hard to spend another $49.95 without really knowing how the YNAB program is going to work for you.

You know it works for others and has helped them get out of the same financial hole that you find yourself in...but you are still on the fence.

Well stop making excuses. The techniques you are using obviously aren't working. If they were you wouldn't be reading this right now.

Take action now! Commit to using the YNAB trial version for the next 7 days. If you don't like it you have nothing to lose. Now that I have a little savings built up though, I'd be willing to bet you like it and that after using it you'll see your financial future in a whole new light.

Click here for your risk free YNAB Trial

You've seen the power of YNAB either through trying it yourself or hearing the rave reviews from others and you are ready to start blasting away your debt.

The good people at YNAB were kind enough to allow me to give you a 10% off discount code. I'm not sure how long the code will last so I'd probably hurry up and take advantage of it, if you are ready to buy YNAB.

Here is how to get your 10% Discount off of YNAB Pro

1. Visit the YNAB site by clicking here

2. Click "Purchase" in the top right corner of the page

3. Enter the YNAB Coupon code below

YNAB Coupon Code => ericsfriend

Enjoy!

I received an email from Jesse Mecham and it sounds like YNAB should be released very soon. Keep checking back for YNAB 3 tutorials, coupons and release info.

Update: I am on the early tester list and I was able to purchase a copy of YNAB 3. So far I am really impressed. There are still some bugs I have encountered but Jesse and the YNAB team are working hard to quickly resolve them as they appear. YNAB 3 runs using Adobe Air, so now those with a MAC can also enjoy this great program. Check back soon for more updates...