And so between my need to be organized and debt free and to be in control of my hard earned cash, over the years I developed my own ways and little tools to help me keep track of my finances. One tool that stood the test of time and really helped me carry myself to a better place financially, was a simple Excel budgeting spreadsheet that I created. Every aspect of my financial picture was in that Excel sheet, it worked back then and it still works wonders for me now because I know about every penny that I have coming in and going out and oh how easy it has become to steer away from all kind of pitfalls such as spending more than I can afford.

Through my journey and personal experience with budgeting I have learned a number of things that were not obvious to me at the outset.  These are somewhat simple things and looking back now I believe it would have helped to have heard those things from someone else at the time.  For example, seeing  budgeting as me directing my money where to go rather than wondering where it went, letting budgeting empower me over my hard earned cash, knowing that being fiscally responsible does not have to be a boring chore, and realizing that those small amounts of over-spending on a little thing here and a little thing there will put us in the debt prison before we know it in the same way that small amounts used as surpluses instead can create our little (or not so little) fortune in life.   That the difference between over spending into debt and living within our means to achieve financial freedom boils down to budgeting.

I also learned that budgeting is a little like using a car, we can’t get one that suits our needs and then leave it alone.  We need to maintain the car constantly, replenish it with gas and other necessities as we go, periodically review its size for our changing needs and possibly get a larger or smaller car as our needs change.  A budget is very much the same, we cannot set it and forget it, in fact there is no point in spending any time on a budget if we are to set it and forget it.  Proper budgeting starts doing its job only after we set it and start living by it, because what we are doing here is not only saying that we cannot afford more than $90 per month on restaurants, but also living within this restriction month after month until we can either afford to spend more or perhaps even cut back further if required.  Living by it is the purpose of budgeting or it becomes a meaningless list of numbers, living by a good budget is what we call living within our means.

Two of the most important things we need to do with budgeting after we put a budget together are reviewing it constantly to reflect changes in our financial picture such as more or less income, and then ensuring that we actually live by our budget by tracking our cash flow each month against our budgeted amounts.  Sounds like a lot of boring work does’nt it?  But this is where good budgeting tools can make the difference between doing it and giving up on the chore.  This is what motivated me to spend much time over the years finding ways and building tools to help master the art of budgeting without it being another dreary task in life.

In 2008 I got inspired to apply my web design passion and skills to building a free online budgeting website so that anyone in the world with web access could use the same budgeting tools that I’ve been using so successfully for years, as a free web app. This resulted in the Out Of The Dark (OOTD for short) web site that I launched in 2009.  I had no idea how successful it would be but judging by the number of users who found it already and started their own budgets there, it must be working for others who see the value in personal budgeting as do I. What a wonderful feeling to know that something one designed and built out of necessity is also proving useful for others.  Another pleasant surprise came in the form of users feedback that started to come back to me, expanding on my personal experience and adding items to the growing wishlist of new features.

My thinking was and remains that a successful useful tool free for all must be 100% about its user community, must reflect the interest and wishes of the users with no compromise, and what a better way to keep it truly user oriented and user driven then to remain a user myself and try to implement all the sweet items on my wishlist as well as items from other user’s wishlists.  This approach resulted in the Out Of The Dark Budgeting website growing and constantly evolving to offer some cool features that I have not seen anywhere else, stuff like anonymous usage, no need to give access to bank accounts, money put aside management built into the budget, personal credit card debt eradication built into the budget, transactional accounts for loan/debt management, personal stock manager, everything is free to use with no conditions no fine print, self serve account cancellation and much more.

As Out Of The Dark evolved and grew so did this complimentary blog with pages listed on the right hand side here dedicated to using the website, each discussing specific issue or aspect of usage, in a way this blog has become a reference reading center for the OOTD user community where users can read on a subject of interest and leave a comment or question too.

Here is the direct link to Out Of The Dark Budgeting (OOTD):

www.myootd.org

Happy budgeting,

Shony