<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/337f83f9-1ebf-4c58-b23b-3e3225b7e0f4/4756DEAC-3DEB-424B-9C69-606235E401C1/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://moneytheory.com/thinking-of-making-a-budget-start-here/" href="http://moneytheory.com/thinking-of-making-a-budget-start-here/" style="font-size: 11px;">moneytheory.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://moneytheory.com/thinking-of-making-a-budget-start-here/"><DIV class="budgeting" id="title"> <DIV class="wrap"> <DIV class="posttitle"> <H2><A title="Permanent Link to Thinking of making a budget? Start here!" rel="bookmark" href="http://moneytheory.com/thinking-of-making-a-budget-start-here/">Thinking of making a budget? Start here!</A></H2> <P class="post-info">Dec 2nd, 2008 by <A title="Posts by Jason" href="http://moneytheory.com/author/Jason/">Jason</A> </p> </DIV> </DIV> </DIV></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://moneytheory.com/thinking-of-making-a-budget-start-here/"><P class="MsoNormal"><STRONG><SPAN>Take the following quiz to see how well you fare at budgeting.</SPAN></STRONG></P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://moneytheory.com/thinking-of-making-a-budget-start-here/"><SPAN>Gather receipts, if available, for all of your food-related expenditures during the past three months.<SPAN> </SPAN>If not available, consult your checking account or credit card statements.<SPAN> </SPAN>If you paid cash, estimate.<SPAN> </SPAN>In any case, compute how much you spent over the course of these three months, and then divide by 3.<SPAN> </SPAN>This will give you a rough estimate of how much you spend monthly on food.</SPAN></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://moneytheory.com/thinking-of-making-a-budget-start-here/"><SPAN>What about health-related costs (doctor co-pays, prescriptions, etc.)?<SPAN> </SPAN></SPAN></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://moneytheory.com/thinking-of-making-a-budget-start-here/"><SPAN>Auto and home maintenance/repair costs?</SPAN></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://moneytheory.com/thinking-of-making-a-budget-start-here/"><SPAN>What amount of money do you expect to spend on clothing, beauty products, toiletries, cleaning supplies, etc?<SPAN> </SPAN></SPAN></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://moneytheory.com/thinking-of-making-a-budget-start-here/"><SPAN>Don’t forget about entertainment!</SPAN></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://moneytheory.com/thinking-of-making-a-budget-start-here/"><SPAN>And last, but certainly not least, how much is left for savings?</SPAN></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/4756DEAC-3DEB-424B-9C69-606235E401C1/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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