Budgeting Tools

Personal finance blogs are full of wisdom and encouragement. Here are some posts that I enjoyed this week.

• Money Funk has developed a spreadsheet to track your budget and spending, including a bad debt to income calculator.
• Get Rich Slowly has a list of favorite posts, including "How to Get Out of Debt". His blog is full of timely articles and great financial advice.
• Lynne at Being Frugal is doing a series on budgeting and has reviewed Pear Budget as well as other budget tools.
• Ms Money Chat at My Money Chat tells why she loves Mint software.
• SVL at The Digerati Life has a review of the YNAB system along with a 10% discount code.
• Jolie at Shaking the Money Tree and Amber at Becoming Debtfree in 2009 have had great success this month with a cash-only envelope system. Their results in January add to the evidence that using cash only reduces spending. I wasn't very successful when I tried this last summer, but I think the key is finding a system that works for you. Check out their methods and results.

I really enjoy and am encouraged by all the above blogs. I highly recommend subscribing to them if you are on a journey to becoming debt-free.