When you have a windfall — a bonus, gift, or extra cash for extra work — use the rule of thirds to determine how to use it:
当你得到一笔意外之财时--奖金、礼物，或是赚到的外快--使用三分之一法则来决定如何使用它：
One third for the past. Use one third to pay down debt you owe.
三分之一用在过去。把三分之一的钱用来支付你欠下的债务。
One third for the future. Put a second third immediately into some sort of savings or investment.
三分之一用在未来。把第二个三分之一立刻进行储蓄或是投资。
One third for the present. Use the final third to make a home or personal improvement or purchase you want.
三分之一用在当前。把最后的三分之一用于家庭或个人改善，又或者是买你想要的东西。
If you follow this rule, you'll see your debt shrink and your savings grow, and you won't feel deprived.
如果你遵循了这个法则，你将看到你的债务在减少，而你的储蓄在增加。你也不会再觉得拮据了！
2. Keep a slush fund handy
手头要有一笔备用金
Something — be it a car repair, an emergency root canal, or a job layoff — always comes up to throw you off your monthly budget. To keep these incidents from running you into debt, you need to have an emergency stash in an easily accessible account, preferably a money market account (they earn a little more interest than regular savings accounts).
How much is enough? Easy. Track all of your spending for a month (including everything from your mortgage payment to lunch at the deli)， and multiply that monthly total by three. That three-month operating budget is a scary number, eh? Well, this is the minimum you should have on hand in case the roof caves in (literally or figuratively) and you need some dough to get you through the rough spots. And don't worry if this money isn't accruing the big interest; it's there for emergencies.
We're always making impulse purchases, from a pack of gum at the supermarket checkout line to that new Van Halen-meets-bluegrass CD. How can you stop your bank account from hemorrhaging? Take a page from the old-timers and shred your ATM card. Figure out how much cash you'll need each week for your regular, cash-based purchases (things like lunch at the cafeteria and your daily cup of coffee)， head on over to the bank teller's window, and get your walking-around money for the week. With a finite amount of cash, you'll start to think twice before those spur-of-the-moment spending sprees.
There comes a time every month when the bills start piling up and you force yourself to sit down and write out all the checks. Well, there's one more check you should be writing — one to yourself. Jay Fine, a longtime financial planner based in Monroe, New Jersey, offers this easy way to put your retirement planning into high gear. "Put yourself on the payroll," he says. "Every month — or even better, every paycheck — make sure you set an amount aside for investment. A good number would be about 6 percent. Anything more would be great. If you have to, you can even write yourself a check to deposit or send to another account. But just as you pay your mortgage and your electric bill without fail, now you'll be making sure to pay yourself as well."
Budgets are the first steps to gaining some financial order in your home. Stanley Kershman, an author, lawyer, and creator of the website www.debtonadiet.com, has a six-step plan to accomplishing just that:
(1) Don't attempt to do your entire budget in one sitting. Take a few days, breaking the work down into manageable pieces.
不要试图一次就想搞定你全部的预算计划。花几天时间，把这个工作分成可以控制的几个部分。
(2) Gather up all of your income information, including salaries, interest, and gifts.
汇总你的所有收入，包括工资，利息和礼物赠品。
(3) Next, gather up all of your expense information. Do this thoroughly, even if it takes three days, a week, or a month. Make sure you're not missing anything.
(4) Using a budget worksheet add up all of the totals for the income and outflow.
使用预算表，在表里填上所有收入和支出的项目。
(5) Figure out where you can do some fine-tuning, either to pay down your debt or increase your savings goals. However, above all, make sure you're making as much money as you're spending. Stay out of the red.
(6) Redo the budget with the new totals, and post it around your house, lest you forget you are now living within the cozy confines of a household budget.
根据新的总额重做一份预算，张贴在家里，提醒自己，现在过的是有家庭预算控制的舒坦生活。
6. Follow these financial rules of thumb
遵循财务黄金法则
Concerned about how much you're spending, how much you should be saving, and how much house you can afford? Use these easy equations to determine how financially healthy you are:
The price of your home should not be more than 2.5 times your annual gross household income.
房子价格不应超过你每年家庭纯收入的2.5倍。
Your total monthly debt payments (including mortgage, student loans, car, and credit card payments) should not be more than 35 percent of your monthly gross income. Some mortgage brokers will stretch this ratio up to 40 percent, but that leaves you very little budgetary wiggle room.
To retire comfortably, your nest egg should be about 20 times what you want your annual income to be. If you anticipate needing about $75,000 a year to live on when you retire, you'll need to save a nest egg of about $1.5 million. Of course, this will vary if you retire early or continue to work longer than usual.
