So, I thought I’d try to straighten out my finances in 2007… wasn’t happing until now, enter Pear Budget. Pear Budget is an Excel spreadsheet that gives you the power to forecast and budget from month to month. The user interface is simple, if you’ve used Excel before, you’ll be able to use Pear Budget. Just open the file and setup your “accounts” on the first page. Pear Budget groups your expenses into 3 main categories:

1. Regular Expenses
   Mortgage, Rent, Electricity, etc.
2. Irregular Expenses
   Auto Maintenance, Doctor Visits, Medicine, Gifts, etc.
3. Variable Expenses
   Groceries, Dining Out, Hair Cuts, etc.

Pear Budget then gives you a simple day by day, month by month sheet format of entering income and expenses and let’s you know whether you’re in-the-hole or above water for not only the current month, but for the year as well.

Simple and easy to use progrom to get your financial life in order… highly recommended if you don’t want to spend the money to get a program like Microsoft Money or Quicken by Intuit.

PearBudget is a FREE budgeting program, written in Excel. It can be used by almost any spread- sheet program (Excel, Word, OpenOffice, etc.). Setting it up is a snap, and it takes less than half an hour a month to maintain it and see how you’re doing. (And—did we mention?—it’s free!)
Pear Budget – http://www.pearbudget.com/