It is important to make an evaluation of finances periodically, especially if: there are major changes in your expenses and/or in your income; you have an unexpected expense, you are planning a significant purchase . 

A good monitoring of finances allows to implement any corrections with the right timing.

Budget monitoring and evaluation can be accomplished with the support of multiple tools, from the more traditional to the innovative ones, below some examples:

• An old-frashioned but always effective tool can be simply a notebook. It can be a valuable ally for starting to annotate the accounts by hand and for getting an overview of income and expenses, but also to improve self-discipline. 

• In online shops it is possible to buy pre-filled account diaries

• A more technological solution is to use a spreadsheet compatible with any device you use: Google Sheet (www.google.com/sheets/about )  and Apple Numbers (https://support.apple.com/it-it/guide/numbers/tanc33201f3f/mac ) offer templates that can help tracking the finances

• Microsoft Excel / Google Documents allow to create personalized spreadsheets. There are also pre-structured files that can be easily found online, such as Microsoft templates : https://templates.office.com/en-us/personal-monthly-budget-spreadsheet-tm16410113 

• Smartphones and tablets can become excellent financial supporting devices thanks to the many applications available for iOS and Android. There is a wide range of options, all with useful features, intuitive, customizable. Some of them can even offer forecast report. Here you have some example of Apps for budgeting: 

  1. Loot –  It allows to: calculate how long it will take to reach the goal based on the amount we want to set aside; stay updated through notifications

  2. Monefy - to keep the expenses under control, just add them, the platform takes care of everything else.

  3. GoodBudget - it permits to create different categories to record, in a timely and accurate way, weekly and monthly expenses. The application, very detailed and comprehensive, also allows you to share the data obtained with your family or other people who need to be made aware of the outflows

  4. Fast Budget - It allows to keep track of the expenses in order to improve financial management. Simple to use, wIth many customizable features, it gives also the possibility to create multiple accounts from which to draw on the expenses to be incurred.