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Up until a few days ago the conversations about revising the first time homebuyer tax credit were mere speculation.  The revised guidelines have now become reality and are a big improvement.

$8,000 Home Buyer Tax Credit at a Glance

• The tax credit is for first-time home buyers only.
• The tax credit does not have to be repaid.
• The tax credit is equal to 10 percent of the home’s purchase price up to a maximum of $8,000.
• The credit is available for homes purchased on or after January 1, 2009 and before December 1, 2009.
• Single taxpayers with incomes up to $75,000 and married couples with incomes up to $150,000 qualify for the full tax credit.

Information obtained from the NAHB

I've spent about a year trying to find a good budgeting system.  I've tried Microsoft Money, mint.com and even hand written budgets.  None of them seemed to work.  They either confused me, had to many features that made them over whelming or it was a self created system that I was unable to stick to.

I just found a system that I'm in LOVE with.  It's very basic, it's free and it is very customizable.  The system is an excel template I found online.  Below is a link to the downloadable template:

http://www.free-financial-advice.net/create-budget.html

In order to take full advantage of the template you need to know how to use Excel a little, but it's fairly easy to learn if you've never used it before.