A budget is a list of the ways you earn and spend your money. And if you create a good, workable categories list with Quicken, you're halfway to a good, solid budget.

To get to the window in which you enter your budget, choose Planning, Budgeting.

Quicken 2002 displays the Setup tab of the Budgeting window. Click the Automatic button if you want Quicken to create a starting budget using any existing financial data. (This existing data comes from financial records you've collected using Quicken.) Otherwise, click the Manual button. After you make this choice, click the Create Budget button. Quicken displays the Income tab of the Budgeting window

You enter your budget for income amounts by using the Income tab and your budget for expense amounts by using the Expenses tab. If you want to budget savings, you can enter these by using the Savings tab. (Budgeted savings, by the way, are just planned account transfers — money you plan to move, for example, into a savings account.)

Initially, none of the tabs shows categories or accounts, which are what you use for your budgeting.

To display categories and accounts, therefore, follow these three simple steps:

1. Click the Choose Categories button so that Quicken displays the Choose Categories dialog box.

If you're looking at the Savings tab, click Choose Accounts so that Quicken displays the Choose Accounts dialog box.

2. Click the Mark All button.

3. Click OK.

Categories or accounts appear along the left edge of the window. Any categories with subcategories (if you have these) contain subtotals for the total inflows and for the total outflows

To move between the Income, Expenses, and Savings tabs, click the tabs.

In a pane along the right edge of the Budgeting window, Quicken displays buttons and boxes you use to budget the selected income, expense, or savings amount.