Household Budget

So, you want to create a household budget? Well, there are several options. You can go the quick-and-dirty way, and make your own free household budget spreadsheet with Microsoft Excel. You can pay $60 for a copy of Microsoft Money or Quicken. Or, you can buy a tried-and-proven household budget system such as You Need A Budget (YNAB), The B-Word, or Mvelopes.

Here's what I think of each type of household budget (the few that I actually like, I rated with dollar signs - 5 is the best):

Making your own Excel household budget:
I actually tried this once, and it was one of my least favorite methods of doing a household budget. The main reason was that while my Excel programming skills are decent, I don't really know how to do some of the complicated data linking that makes for a good household budget. So, if you really know how to program Excel like a pro, go for it. Otherwise, I'd steer clear of the do-it-yourself approach.

Microsoft Money:
Being a real technophile, I thought that Microsoft Money was a great way to make a household budget…until I actually used it. Strictly speaking, it is entirely too feature-rich for use as a budgeting program. I spent too many hours looking at my projected bank account balances, and not enough time budgeting. So, for some tasks MS Money is a great tool, but in my opinion, it's like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer.

Quicken:
This program is almost a clone of Microsoft Money, or maybe it's the other way around. Again, just like MS Money, Quicken is not ideal for a household budget. Ditto on the sledgehammer-fly analogy here. It's just too much flash, and not enough simplicity.

You Need A Budget (YNAB):
Remember how I said earlier that making your own household budget in Excel was probably a bad idea? Well, fortunately I found a well-made Excel budget spreadsheet that does what I want it to do, and doesn't do what I don't need it to do. It takes me about ten minutes a week to enter my receipts into the YNAB household budget spreadsheet, and it has kept my wife and me from bouncing a check or even coming close to an overdraft. It's one of the systems that I most recommend.

The B Word:
This household budget system doesn't work like other systems. First of all, it consists of only two worksheets on your computer. Second, it eliminates most of the receipt-collecting and entering duties that most other systems require. One of the things that I found most amazing was that it eliminates a lot of the redundant activities associated with other household budgets. The author puts it like this: "You need to focus more on the forest than on the trees." In other words, The B Word is about the big picture, not the details.

Mvelopes:
This is the big daddy of household budgets. I find it amazing that they've done it, but at last count they're electronically linked to 9,348 financial institutions. That means that once you've bought something, Mvelopes automatically enters the transaction into your budget. Even better, it's entirely online. So, instead of just accessing your household budget spreadsheet at home, you can access your Mvelopes budget from any computer with Internet access. They're currently offering a 30-day free trial, so you can see if you like it or not before making a decision.

That's just my short list of the best household budgets available, and some that I recommend you steer clear of. Have fun with your budget!