5 Ways to Build Your Budget
Prior to November 2008, JaQuetta Garrison and her family enjoyed an annual household income of $80,000 and lived a comfortable upper middle-class lifestyle in their hometown of Lithonia, Georgia. The only budgeting they did was in their “mental budget book,†as Garrison says. But all that changed when her husband, Machion, lost his job as an engineering estimator at an IT company, bringing down their monthly income to $2,400. The couple had to immediately reduce costs, so they created a spreadsheet for their budget that they now stick to religiously.
