Congratulations, you have taken an important step in taking charge of your money!

Building a family budget is the best way to get a handle on the flow of your money – how much you’re making and how much you’re spending. Follow these simple steps to create a practical, detailed budget that will help you make good financial choices, and protect you from overspending.

Excel users: You can save this file on your own computer, allowing you to update your data and recalculate your budget as your situation changes; or experiment with how different choices may affect your budget. To do this right-click on the link below, select Save As..., and save the document to a known location on your computer.

Non-Excel users: Open and print the worksheets in this file to build your budget manually, using paper, pencil and a calculator.