When I headed off to university (longer ago than I care to admit), my dad and I made a deal where he would cover 90 per cent of the cost of tuition and room and board, provided I maintained a 3.0 GPA, didn't move in with any boys, and we sat down before every semester and talked about my career goals and financial plans after university. That last part I hated when I was 18, but I think was something that set me up for success, and I'd recommend anyone that is paying for their child's tuition (or even if you aren't) to do.

Australian companies are spending 3.7% more on tech this year than last year but that money doesn't seem to be going to traditional vendors, based on data coming from Gartner.

Telsyte released an interesting report yesterday. Their research found almost two-thirds of the 263 IT decision makers they surveyed expected their budgets to increase this year. The main reason is the need to invest in big data and analytics tools to support sales and marketing, and to prepare for the data deluge that IoT will bring.

Here's a little exercise for you to try out. Take out your latest credit card bill from your most frequently used credit card. Print it out if it's an electronic bill; otherwise, just grab a pen and put the bill on the table in front of you.

Budgeting your money every month is a good habit. However, if you only focus on one month at a time, you can get blindsided by big expenses. Focus on the trends of your year to be better prepared.

Your dollar goes further in certain cities, depending on the cost of housing and the cost of living in general. If you're unfamiliar with an area, you may not know how to budget your life accordingly. The Earth Awaits helps build a custom budget specific to cities all over the world.

Maggie McCombs, 26, a content marketer and social media consultant in Lexington, Kentucky, grew up believing her family was struggling.

Ever since I was a little kid, I've had an affinity for numbers. My father loves telling this story about how when I was seven, I corrected a guy's maths off the top of my head -- of course, that correction worked against my father and cost him some amount of money.

No matter how much financial advice you get, no one can ever tell you what matters to you. When you're making a budget, make sure you consider your own values while deciding where to put your money.

Most of the money things you need to deal with happen on a regular basis, and you can usually move most monthly due dates. While you're at it, go ahead and pick one day a month to be the day that you catch up on all your finance needs.

When you're creating a budget, you probably start with a list. However, your budget is a lot more like a pie chart. You can only allot so much money to certain tasks, so it helps to think of it that way.

Many of us create our budgets on a monthly basis, but for finer control, you might want to create a weekly allowance for your spending. LearnVest offers this strategy.

It's not too hard to build a basic budget. A few tips and tricks can help you make it really solid. But even a good budget can go awry. There are a handful of mistakes that throw people off, but the good news is: these mistakes are easy enough to fix.

You could spend hours every day optimising your budget choices to make sure you're not wasting a penny. However, the time isn't always worth the effort. Instead, focus on simplifying your budget.

The holiday months have a terrible habit of sucking every last dime out of your wallet. Now that it's over, it's the perfect time to update your budget to fix last year's shortfalls, and prepare for next year.

Budgeting is all about solving a maths problem, right? Nope. It's about psychology. It's about happiness. Your budget is more complex than just numbers. And it's hard to find balance without practicing gratitude.

Budgeting is pretty easy when you have regular income and regular monthly bills, but don't forget to plan for non-monthly expenses. NerdWallet tells us how much we should set aside for things like car maintenance and other necessary expenses.

Getting a pay bump is one of the best occasions you can have in your career. Instead of immediately changing up your budget to fit your new salary, however, wait a couple months instead.

If you've managed to get your budget under control, to the point where you're spending less than you earn, that's great! That's not being "frugal", though. That's just basic budgeting.