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Assess Current Situation How Do You Spend Your Money? Do you know how much you need every month to pay the bills, to maintain your current standard of living? Understanding your current spending habits is critical to managing your money short term as well as doing accurate long-term projections. (See the Risk Management and Retirement Planning courses.) You don't need to lock yourself into a fixed budget, but paying attention to how you spend your money provides important clues as to what modifications may be needed.   Activity The process of figuring out how you spend your money today and how you want or should spend it tomorrow, is called budgeting. First, take a look at your current expenses. You can itemize your expenses with our Budgeting Worksheet. < PREVIOUS NEXT > #38599