The Budget Kit: The Common Cents Money Management Workbook - Softcover

Lawrence, Judy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1607148609 ISBN 13: 9781607148609

Publisher: Kaplan Test Prep, 2011

Synopsis

The bestselling guide to getting finances under control--now fully updated and revised for these financially challenging times.

No matter your financial goal, a well-defined budget is the first step to achieving success. The Budget Kit offers consumers a foundation of knowledge, advice in reining in out-of-control spending, and necessary background information on personal investing.

Judy Lawrence, trusted budget coach and personal financial counselor, uses straightforward and easy-to-understand exercises to teach readers how to meet their financial needs and goals.

The Budget Kit is filled with practical forms and tools you can use to organize and keep track of your finances, as well as expert advice to help you:

• Create monthly and yearly budgets
• Outline a plan for repaying debt
• Manage a budget on a variable income
• Find spending leaks
• Navigate online finances
• Track medical expenses and flexible spending accounts
• ...and more!

The Budget Kit is fully revised and now includes an updated online resource guide that directs readers to helpful websites for additional information on spending guidelines, credit card debt, and recovery issues.

With Judy's tried-and-true guidance, you can get your spending under control and create a budget that will put you on the road to financial freedom!

About this title

From the Publisher:

Budgeting Just Got Easy

Simply having money does not necessarily guarantee your ability to manage it. In an age of information overload, many of us simply don’t have the time, knowledge, or organizational skills to set up a simple, functional system for managing our daily, monthly, and yearly finances. That’s where The Budget Kit comes in—practical, comprehensive, and easy-to-use, this bestselling classic shows you how to put your financial house in order and take the first steps toward financial independence.

Even if you are using a financial software program, you will find the concepts in The Budget Kit to be essential to your understanding of budgeting. Whether you make $30,000 or $100,000, if you follow the guidelines in this manual, you will be well on your way to creating the freedom and ability to achieve your personal and financial goals.

From the Author:

In the past, many author colleagues used to joke by saying "You're the only author I know who writes with a ruler".  It is true that every book I have created or co-created has some version of journaling, or recording aspect to it.  Being a counselor, I guess my style has always been one of inviting active engagement and participation. 

When I originally started self-publishing the book, Common Cent$, the forerunner to The Budget Kit, I literally was using a ruler, trying to create the worksheets (this was way before Microsoft Excel and other amazing software and online tools).  It didn't take long to find out that approach was not going to work. Fortunately, at the time I was working as an Admission Counselor at a Community College, and a new Graphic Arts program was just starting and the department needed projects.  I still have a few copies of those original comb-bound, red and black inside print Common Cent$ workbooks and fond memories of it's origins.

My goal was always to provide a tool for consumers that would be non-intimidating, easy to understand and use, and one that would inspire immediate use to help consumers gain confidence and better mastery of their personal finances.  Realizing that some consumers did not have the organizational skills or the time to create these worksheets, the workbook was specifically designed to be a hands-on workbook and provide all the worksheets, in multiple form for every month, so all one had to do (during those days and now) was to pick up a pencil with an eraser and get started.

One of the reasons this book became so popular in those early years was the style in which it was written. Personal finance books were written by financial experts with the normal professional jargon. Since I had a counseling background, a solid financial upbringing and a good dose of common sense, I wrote from the perspective of the lay consumer with no jargon. In fact, at the time I literally had no background in bookkeeping, or accounting so I did not know the jargon. As it turns out, this turned out to be one of the major selling points for the workbook.  Financial experts from major firms around the country were contacting me asking how to find another copy of the Common Cent$ workbook.  For years they had tried to explain these basic concepts to their wives with little success. Finally through the workbook their wives were understanding and now on board with the household finances. 

What I realize now, but did not realize in those early years, was that many of the core money management concepts I introduced, explained and represented through the basic easy-to-understand and use worksheets, were literally new pioneered concepts that did not yet exist in the personal finance book market. Talk about being ahead of my time.  

It wasn't until the early 90's that I started seeing comparable topics included in the personal finance books (when that market started to explode), but still very few books with worksheets to help the consumer get started. The Budget Kit has ultimately ended up being a wonderful hands-on companion to the hundreds of excellent personal finance books on the market that discuss and show a sample of how to create and manage a budget, but still leave it up to the reader to create or find tools to follow through with the suggestions just read. 

Throughout the years, The Budget Kit has been updated with new editions reflecting the times, as well as comments, suggestions and success stories from the thousands of readers.  To continue to stay current and provide convenience with the workbook tools some of the core worksheets were converted into The Budget Kit Excel spreadsheets years ago. Now the core tracking worksheet is available in an Android app and eventually will be available for the iPhone products. 

I am very proud to have created a workbook and a tool that has helped so many consumers transform their personal lives and fulfill my intention from the earliest conception of this workbook.

Thank you for taking the time to read this background story and allowing me to share this history with you.

About this edition

• Publisher: Kaplan Test Prep
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1607148609
• ISBN 13: 9781607148609
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 6
• Number of pages: 240