One of the most important things about your money is setting a budget. Setting a budget is vital to the financial status of every person and family.
First read the post about where your money is going. Now you are in a position to form a plan. Setting a budget includes figuring out how much money is coming in every month (if you own a business and your income fluctuates then use the lowest figure), and add up all of your expenses per month. This not only includes all your bills, but your gas, food, and how much money you spend each month on other things.
Now once you figure out what is left over you need to set some goals. Setting a budget always includes goals because you need to know what to do with the money that is left over at the end of the month. If there is no money left over at the end of the month then you first need to decide where you are going to cut spending. Remember there are 100's of ways to immediately save some money - going out to eat less times per month, etc.
First, the difficult part of setting a budget arrives. The difficult part is having the discipline to save some of your hard earned money at the end of every month. But after you do that, then comes the exciting part of setting a budget. The exciting part is choosing what you are going to do with your extra money every month or every week. You can put money aside for a vacation, for retirement, for that toy you want, for the neighbor next door that is much less fortunate or for anything you want. You can also set part of the extra money aside for something you are excited about and place the rest of the extra money on a credit card (recommended if you have credit card debt).
If you don't have much debt then setting a budget will help prevent you from getting into much debt. But at any rate, setting a budget is critical to your finances. It must be done for you to be successful financially. It will require some discipline, but will be well pleasing in the long run.
Now go, set your budget today! You can modify it later.