We have a number of budgeting tools that can help you put together a budget and manage your money better. Here are 5 of our most popular budgeting resources. Start with whatever one grabs your interest or seems like it might work for you.
Here is our highly requested 7 step workbook that helps tens of thousands of people develop a personal budget every year. It can work for you too.
This workbook is available as either a plain PDF download or a fillable PDF download (the previous version of this workbook). If you wish to receive a printed version of this workbook, please contact us to obtain a copy.
A lot of people wonder how much of their income they should spend on their home, vehicle, groceries, clothes, etc. Below are some guidelines to give you a general idea and provide you with a starting point for your budget. Based on your income, family circumstances, and the part of the country you live in, your allocations may be very different.
To work with these budgeting guidelines, begin by developing your budget with the money you have available after government deductions from your pay cheque, but before voluntary deductions such as RRSPs, pensions, or other savings. If you have expenses such as high debt payments, childcare, school expenses, or giving, you will need to reduce your spending in other areas to allow for these higher expenses.
To make budgeting easier and more fun, we've created a budget calculator that guides you as you create your own budget. It makes suggestions and warns you if you appear to be spending too much money in any area of your budget. Once you're done, it can take a look at your budget and see if it can find any ways for your to improve your spending plan or save some money.
The budget calculator is also a personal budget template that can be used just as easily for household or family budgets. You can download it to your home computer for use in Excel (on a PC), Numbers (on a Mac), or Open Office (if you don't have Excel or Numbers).
Download Microsoft Office Excel 2007 Worksheet (.xlsx) File
Download Mac version as Numbers Spreadsheet (.numbers) File
Download as Open Office Spreadsheet (.ods) File
Sometimes the easiest way to learn is to have someone show you how to do something. That's what we do with our online budget workshops - which we refer to as webinars. We have 10 Financial Educators across Canada. Half a dozen times a week or more our Educators will host webinars on various budgeting and personal finance topics to help Canadians learn to get more out of their money and their credit. The topics they often cover include:
To see when webinars are taking place that you might like to attend, check out the webinar schedule, and register to attend any that are of interest to you.
If you want to personalize your tracking and you like using Excel, try this comprehensive expense category Excel worksheet. Rename any category to make tracking easier.
If you want to track your spending by writing down your expenses, download this handy Monthly Expense Tracker booklet and print some copies.
If you'd like some help with your budget - or help creating one - one of our budgeting experts would be happy to help you. All of our Credit Counsellors have tremendous expertise at helping people create and fine-tune budgets to get the most out of their money and achieve their financial goals.
If you're struggling with your finances right now, putting together a realistic budget is the very best place to start, but we don't stop there. One of our Credit Counsellors can also help you explore all your options to get your finances back on track and help you put together a plan to get out of debt.
You can meet with a Credit Counsellor in person or over the phone - whichever option is better for you. Call us today to make an appointment. We're here to help you. Appointments with our Counsellors are always free, non-judgmental, and completely confidential.
