Dig through sites like LifeHacker, Mint or Consumerist and you’ll find literally hundreds of tips and pointers for reigning in your personal spending habits and abiding a household budget. Regardless of whether you’re unemployed or you enjoy a comfortable income, spending money on anything without some kind of fiscal framework or set of rules to fall back on is a good recipe for anxiety, if not outright financial ruin. The various strategies you’ll find range in sophistication from storing your credit cards inside blocks of ice to using heavy-duty applications like Quicken.
