The Complete Personal Finance Handbook

Financial mistakes are easy to make and harder to fix.

If you take the card, make sure that you are making the monthly payments on a timely basis. Do not go wild and let your spending get out of control. Make every single purchase with your budget in mind.

One of the major fixed bills is rent or mortgage payment, but they also include monthly car payments, and insurance, such as medical, life, auto, renters or mortgage.

Definition: Variable bills do not stay the same from month to month because of how the product is used or the service changes each month.

Fluctuating monthly bills are called variable expenses. They include electricity, water, natural gas, and oil, credit card bills, gasoline, and groceries. Determine an average monthly cost for each.

Definition: Discretionary funds are money that can be spent freely and without guilt.

Definition: Fixed bills are those that do not change from month to month.

After finding income, it is time to look at outgoing money. The first place to look is at fixed bills.

Definition: A budget is simply a game plan for managing income to cover the cost of living over a set period of time.

Debt has to stay in control. If control is a personal problem, do not get a credit card.