PearBudget

Who hasn't been thinking about money these days? We all have, I'm sure -- its hard to get away from money talk.

I don't consider myself a financial guru, but I do believe in the simple financial values of saving, budgeting and living within my means. As the wife of a medical resident, these values have been extremely important to our livelihood. When I was first married it was easy to live simply and stay within our income, but as kids, a house, traveling, education, and rising gas prices started to enter the picture, budgeting became essential.

At first, we struggled to maintain our finances and quickly became frustrated with some well known budgeting software. They were too complex, with too many options and categories. Our efforts to stay on top of the budget were mediocre at best.

After reading an article about PearBudget in Popular Science Magazine a couple of years back, we decided to give it a try. We love it and found this to be a budgeting tool we could stick to. PearBudget is what it claims to be, "really simple budgeting." In the beginning, PearBudget was a spreadsheet you downloaded to your computer. Now PearBudget is available online for a minimal fee of $3 a month. You can still download the spreadsheet for free if you are super cheap like me.

Here are my favorite features:

1) It's very flexible.

2) I make my own categories, a lot or just a few, with the names I choose.

3) I can see how much I need to budget each month for yearly expenses like Christmas or traveling.

4)It's user friendly; hey I can use it.

So if you are looking for something to sort out your finances that is simple and virtually free, try PearBudget and put your mind at ease about your finances.