A budget program such as CalendarBudget will help you keep track of your income and expenses so you can see how to spend your money more wisely.

I came across this column on the internet (Everyday Cheapskate – click here to see the column) where the author was talking about the negative effect that canceling your credit card has on your credit rating. It is important to know what things do affect your credit rating, so the article is a good read for that cause, but I feel you have to be on guard for handling your credit much earlier than this.

It is far more important to spend your money wisely in the first place. Don’t buy what you can’t afford! Limiting yourself to 1 or 2 credit cards are best to avoid having more debt than you can handle. Do all you can to keep a small to no balance on your credit card. When my husband and I go out for dinner occasionally we pay by credit card for convenience and as soon as we get home we pay off the balance (since we really don’t use our credit card very often, the dinner amount would be the only amount owing).

A credit card is not a necessity, but a budget program to track purchases is

Having a credit card seems to have become a necessity these days. And that’s the thing, it only seems that way. There are always ways around it. The greatest way is to have a plan and save ahead for items you would typically purchase on credit. Know and plan your purchases ahead of time to have enough money saved for the larger purchases.

CalendarBudget is such a program to help you do that with great ease. Enter your typical expenses that come up every month, enter other unplanned expenses that come up daily, see your potential bank account balance on any given day(shown next to the date for that given day), to know if you will have the money needed for your purchase or when you will have it.

Plan for your purchases and control your credit with the budget program that provides bank-level security, CalendarBudget.