An Ideal Budget

What does your budget look like? Do you spend first and save later? Nothing left to save you say. Well I found a great budgeting tool. The simplest way to budget is known as the 60% budget. Written by Richard Jenkins at MSN Money it goes like this:

Monthly committed expenses should be at or below 60% of your gross income.

Examples of committed expenses are:
Essential Housing Expenses - Rent, mortgage, utilities, insurances and taxes.
Food and Clothing Expenses
Insurance Premiums - Health, homeowner, and car.
All Bills - non essential utilities such as cable, cc debt, transportation, student loans, etc.
All Taxes
Charity

The other 40% should be broken into 10% chunks like this:
Retirement Savings - 401k or IRA contributions.
Long Term Savings - Liquid cash on hand usually for emergency fund.
Short Term Savings - To be used for irregular expenses such as: new car, new appliances, birthday or holiday gifts, vacation fund, etc.
Fun Money - Dinners out, movies, plays, etc.

Right now, this budget may seem impossible for some people. The idea is to use this as a guideline to make the best use of your money. Follow this budget, and you'll start to have a lot of money left over at the end of the month.