Chapter 3 Budgeting: Using Your Money Wisely 47 Copyright Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc. May not be reproduced or posted to a publicly accessible website. Give It a Go Give It a Go Tracking Your Income Review your income from last month and record the amounts in this chart. Write categories for your income in the Source column and each amount in the Amount column. Total the Amount column. Monthly Income Name: For the month of: Source Amount Total Income $ LO 3-3 LO 3-3 Expenses After you have estimated your income, you are ready to estimate expenses. An expense is an amount paid for goods or services. Do you pay for your school lunches? Clothes? Your cell phone? Entertainment? These are examples of expenses. Examples of expenses for adults are mortgage or rent payments and car payments. You probably do not have many expenses beyond those for your personal needs. However, when you graduate and go to college or begin a full-time job, you will find there will be a lot more expenses to consider. Rent, utilities, groceries, and many other expenses will need to be tracked. Getting in the habit of tracking your spending now will help make it easier when your expenses are greater. When creating a budget, do not forget to allow for savings as well as spending. The phrase pay yourself first means you should budget for savings before you budget for spending. If you do not plan to save money in your budget, you probably will not have money left over to save. Record savings as an expense to help you get into the routine of saving money every month.