Budget

All > Business > Finance > Personal Finance
  • A budget is a written record of income and expenses during a specific time frame, typically a year.

    You use a budget as a spending plan to allocate your income to cover your expenses and to track how closely your actual expenditures line up with what you had planned to spend.

    An essential part of personal budgeting is creating an emergency fund, which you can use to cover unexpected expenses. You also want to budget a percentage of your income for saving and investing, just as you budget for food, housing, and clothing.

    Businesses and governments also create budgets to govern their expenditures for a fiscal year - though like individuals they make regular adjustments to reflect financial reality. And like individuals, businesses and governments can find themselves in trouble if their spending outpaces their income.


    Yahoo Finance - Cite This Source - This Definition
  • Browse Related Terms: Financial plan, Spending plan

Also listed in:

Browse Nearby Business Terms

Bonds (Corporate)
Book-entry security
book value
Bottom fishing
Bottom-up investing
Bourse
Brady bond
Breakout
breakpoint
broker
broker-dealer
Brokerage account
Brokerage firm
Brokerage window
Bucket shop
Budget
bull market
Bull spread
Buy-and-hold
Buy down
Buy side
Buyback
Buyer's agent
Bylaws
CAC Digital Signature
Cafeteria plan
Call
Call option
Callable bond
Cap