Develop a Monthly Spending Plan

See if this scenario sounds familiar: You slave over your budget, crunching numbers until everything falls into place; but still you manage to spend more than you planned each month. What's the deal?

The simple answer is that you may be expecting too much from your budget. While a budget is great for helping you to plan for your regularly occuring expenses, it's not as good at helping you to plan for those one-time expenses--car repairs, medical bills, presents, subscription renewals, etc.--and those are often the budget-wreckers.

That's where the monthly spending plan comes in--a tool that essentially takes your budget from ideal to real. Have some extra expenses this month? Form a spending plan that includes them, and then get back to life. No need to live with a budget that doesn't work for you.

• Monthly Spending Plan