Sharon develops a basic plan for Alana to track every dollar she spends over the course of a month. Alana collects all her receipts in a shoebox and reviews them with Sharon at the end of the month:

• Coffee: 10 lattes @ $4 each
• Movies: 3 movies @ 10 each
• Food: 4 meals with friends @ $12 each; 20 snacks/energy drinks @$3 each
• Clothes: 3 trips to the mall with friends @ $30 per trip
• Car insurance: Parents make her pay $70/month toward policy in exchange for driving family car
• Gas for car: 2 fill-ups @ $35 each
• Cell phone: Parents expect her to pay $36/month toward family plan
• Shoes: 1 pair @ $60

To help make sense of all of this information, Sharon asks Alana to organize the information by using the budget template provided below. In the category column, she will list all of her various expenses. She will then make a judgment call about whether each expense is a Want or a Need. In the Monthly Cost column, she will total up the cost for each of the expenses. In the last column, she will calculate how much that item is as a percentage of her total costs. This should help her determine where she spent most of her money in the past month.