How does your personal or family budget look compared to everybody else?
Are you tracking what percentages of after-tax income you are spending the most on?
Do you know what the highest spending category is?
Here’s an article posted at Bankrate.com that includes a handy chart of how much money people spend in different categories. It’s a good benchmark for evaluating your own spending:
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/debt/use-personal-loan-credit-card-debt.aspx
If you are higher in some category than the average, it’s a good place to start cutting back.
You can use a free app like Mint to track and categorize your spending habits. It syncs with your bank accounts and retirement accounts and will also track your net worth over time.
You can download it here: