I decided to pretend to be mature for a few minutes of my month by setting up a simple budget. I haven't done any semblance of a budget since about 2004. Since it's been so long, I didn't bother trying to look for my old spreadsheet, that would take forever and wouldn't be a wise appropriation of time. And you all know that I want to spend my hours at work making certain that I don't waste company time.

So I did what any modern person would do, I Google'd it. My search for "budget spreadsheet" returned the usual plethora of results. I went through about 5 spreadsheet downloads, and ended up liking the first result the best. Vertex42 was that version that I liked the best. You may also want to try the Microsoft "Template" site where you can search for budget related files. That site had some good and some bad. I didn't find anything in there that did more than the Vertex42 sheet, so I stopped looking after a while.

The Vertex42 sheet has everything that I need. The layout is nice, easily fits into the width of a standard medium resolution monitor (no side scrolling), has the more important top rows locked so they always appear on screen, and has plenty of rows to put in any expense you could think of.

I also messed around with an online budget system from Pear Budget. It's rather simple and easy to use. This system would be perfect for someone who wants to be able to manage the budget from more than one location (from work and home, or from multiple computers/PDA's/SmartPhones). The downside is that this is a paid service. But at only $3 a month, anyone that can afford an internet connection should be able to justify that cost.

The site is very well done, and I say that from a web developer's point of view. I've signed up for their free 30 day trial which I will probably convert to a paid account this Friday (payday). That way I can use it from the 4+ computers that I use at 3+ locations. Synchronizing a spreadsheet over multiple computers is a pain, and it tends to not get synch'd as often as it should.

After working through 3 budgets, the numbers show that I could save about $600 a month, leaving me with seven to eight thousand dollars in my bank each year. If that's the case, why am I always broke? I guess for it to work, I need to put everything in there, no matter how trivial. Then see where all that wasted money is being spent. Now I just need the motivation to do that much work. I'm hoping that it will come with time.

I'd like some other people's ideas and suggestions about budgeting. Post a comment with what you do, even if it's just to say that you use a standard spreadsheet. If you do use a spreadsheet, try the Vertex42 version and tell me what you think. I'm very interested to know if there is something that this sheet is missing.