By Sheryl Smolkin

November is Financial Literacy Month in Canada. One of the building blocks of financial literacy is the ability to a develop a realistic budget and stick to it. After all, if you don’t have a roadmap or a financial GPS, it is impossible to figure out where you are going and how long it will take you to get there.

One place to start, is Squawkfox’s new series, 5 days to fix your budget. Kerry K. Taylor shows you how to set up a budget, find your net worth, set financial goals, and track your spending. Plus there are free budgeting downloads and software to make your financial life easier.

The Canadian Budget Binder also has a ten-part series published at the beginning of the year you may find useful.

1. How We Designed: Our Budget Step 1 – Gathering All the information
2. How We Designed: Our Budget Step 2 – Categories
3. How We Designed: Our Budget Step 3 – Tracking Reciepts
4. How We Designed: Our Budget Step 4 – Note-taking
5. How We Designed: Our Budget Step 5 – 5S Organization
6. How We Designed: Our Budget Step 6 – Who Does What and When?
7. How We Designed: Our Budget Step 7 – Balancing Our Budget
8. How We Designed: Our Budget Step 8 – Knowing our Coupon Savings
9. How We Designed: Our Budget Step 9 – Reading Our Bills
10. How We Designed: Our Budget Step 10 – Projected Expenses

Once you have made a budget, to stay on target Robb Engen says on Boomer & Echo, that you have to follow perennial advice from David Chilton (The Wealthy Barber). “Sometimes when people ask you to do something, you’ll have to reply, ‘I can’t afford it.’ It sounds so simple, but few of us have the will power to pass up the chance to go out with friends and family for fear of missing out.

For Robert, a guest blogger on Canadian Dream: Free at 45, matching expenses to income is an important way to stay solvent. That means if you are paid twice a month, try to shift certain big bills like mortgage payments, credit card bills or RRSP savings so all of these amounts don’t hit your bank account at the same time at the beginning of the month.

And finally, teach your children and grandchildren. Blonde on a budget Cait shares personal finance lessons she wished she had been taught in school. They include: how to read a pay stub; how to write a budget; how much to save and why; how to use a credit card; and, how to pay for post-secondary;

Do you follow blogs with terrific ideas for saving money that haven’t been mentioned in our weekly “Best from the blogosphere. Share the information with us on http://wp.me/P1YR2T-JR and your name will be entered in a quarterly draw for a gift card.