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+\f0\fs28 \cf0 Keeping a budget allows you to pay closer attention to your income and\
+expenses, by reporting how far your actual financial activity is from\
+your expectations.\
+\
+To start keeping a budget, put some period transactions at the top of your\
+ledger file.  A period transaction is almost identical to a regular transaction,\
+except that it begins with a tilde and has a period expression in\
+place of a payee.  For example:\
+\
+@smallexample\
+~ Monthly\
+  Expenses:Rent               $500.00\
+  Expenses:Food               $450.00\
+  Expenses:Auto:Gas           $120.00\
+  Expenses:Insurance          $150.00\
+  Expenses:Phone              $125.00\
+  Expenses:Utilities          $100.00\
+  Expenses:Movies              $50.00\
+  Expenses                    $200.00  ; all other expenses\
+  Assets\
+\
+~ Yearly\
+  Expenses:Auto:Repair        $500.00\
+  Assets\
+@end smallexample\
+\
+These two period transactions give the usual monthly expenses, as well as\
+one typical yearly expense.  For help on finding out what your average\
+monthly expense is for any category, use a command like:\
+\
+@example\
+ledger -p "this year" -MAs bal ^expenses\
+@end example\
+\
+The reported totals are the current year's average for each account.\
+\
+Once these period transactions are defined, creating a budget report is as\
+easy as adding @option\{--budget\} to the command-line.  For example, a\
+typical monthly expense report would be:\
+\
+@example\
+ledger -M reg ^exp\
+@end example\
+\
+To see the same report balanced against your budget, use:\
+\
+@example\
+ledger --budget -M reg ^exp\
+@end example\
+\
+A budget report includes only those accounts that appear in the\
+budget.  To see all expenses balanced against the budget, use\
+@option\{--add-budget\}.  You can even see only the unbudgeted expenses\
+using @option\{--unbudgeted\}:\
+\
+@example\
+ledger --unbudgeted -M reg ^exp\
+@end example\
+\
+You can also use these flags with the @command\{balance\} command.}
+\ No newline at end of file