Budget

A budget is the financial plan for a defined period, often one year. It may also include spoke sales volumes and revenues, resource quantities, costs together with expenses, assets, liabilities and cash flows. Companies, governments, families, and other organizations use it to express strategic plans of activities or events in measurable terms.

A budget is the calculation of finances intended for a particular aim and the abstract of intended expenditures along with proposals for how to meet them. It may increase a budget surplus, providing money for use at a future time, or a deficit in which expenses exceed income.

Etymology and definition

The word budget comes from the Old French word meaning "small leather purse", which in reshape is a diminutive of the Gaulish for "leather pouch, purse". Its first use in our sophisticated understanding of a financial schedule comes from the pamphlet The Budget Opened by William Pulteney, which uses the term budget to describe and critique the governments' fiscal policy on wine and tobacco.

The common usage of the word "budget" refers to a financial plan by an individual or an organization based on their projected income and expenses. By extension, it also is used in the sense of the amount that individual or agency has usable to spend.