Budgeting and Personal finance

Below is the information on budgeting and personal finance to assist you with the transition to a Bi-weekly pay schedule.

MontGuides from MSUExtension

http://www.montana.edu/extensionecon/familyeconomics/financialmgtpublications.html

Developing a Spending Plan MontGuide

This four page guide provides an overview of budgeting, average expenditures by category (housing, food, transportation, etc.). This publication also has a chart where you can create a budget and then revise it after following it for a few months. Excel worksheets with this information are also available.

Schedule of Non-Monthly Family Living Expenses MontGuide

This four page guide helps individuals track and plan for expenses that occur on a non-monthly basis. A few examples of these expenses might be Vehicle Registration, Property Taxes and events like vacation, Christmas or back to school expenses. The guide includes a chart to help individuals organize and plan for these types of expenses.

Using a Check Register to Track Your Expenses MontGuide

This four page guide explains the check register system of tracking expenses by category. This is similar to the envelope method of budgeting utilizing cash transactions. Special check registers are also available to assist individuals wanting to utilize this budgeting method.

Other MSU Extension Tools:

Credit $mart about Credit:

This website has information for MSU Extension about using credit wisely and resources to help you take control of your finances. The website also includes an excellent list of resources from: America Saves, Employee Benefit Research Institute, Federal Reserve Board, Institute for Financial Literacy and others. https://creditsmarts.montana.edu/

Solid Finances Webinar Series

(The 2020-2021 webinar series schedule will be announced soon).

The Solid Finances webinar series offers approximately 15 free webinars each year on a variety of personal finance and estate planning topics. Working adults are the primary audience for this series. Participants are welcome to attend all of the sessions or just the sessions that are of interest to them. Recordings of past webinars are available on the Solid Finances webpage. https://solidfinances.msuextension.org/