Create a Personal Budget

What is a budget?

There’s an old joke that you never want to run out of money before you run out of month. A budget is the plan you put together to make sure you stay on track. You might create a budget because you’ve got a specific goal, like saving for a vacation or college expenses. Or you may just want to set a spending plan so you never have to worry that your checks will start bouncing every four weeks. Either way, with Mint’s updated budget feature, getting started is a snap.

Three basic steps.

You can get started with budgeting by following three basic steps. First, you have to identify where your money has been going. Second, you have to set some goals on where to cut back. And third, you have to track your spending to make sure you’re sticking to that goal.

We’ve outlined each of those steps in the pages that follow: Budget Planning, Creating A Budget, and Tracking A Budget. To make it even easier, we’ve included a section of Tools You Can Use. Because each of these steps goes a whole lot quicker when you use software and other tools to do most of the work automatically.

Budgeting rules of thumb.

There are a few rules of thumb that you should keep in mind. Your housing expenses shouldn’t exceed about 33% of your income. And your total debt payment (which ideally should be zero!) probably shouldn’t exceed 30%. If you have more debt than that, it’s time to start cutting spending and looking for ways to cut fees on credit card accounts, savings accounts and other ways to save.

Budgeting is easier with Mint

Mint pulls together all of your spending into one place, with automatic categorization and helpful charts. And our budgeting tools make budget planning a snap.
Sign up now or learn more

Want to learn more? See our features on Budget Planning, Creating A Budget, Tracking A Budget, and Tools You Can Use.