In this example we use some of the historical data from the 'Average US Consumer 2000.bgt' file to to show the operations involved in starting to build a budget.

1. Start a new budget by clicking New Budget File on the File menu. This will automatically open the Edit Original Budget with a new empty budget.
2. The new budget tree starts with a single category named 'First Category'.
   

   Note: By design, the budget tree always contains at least one category.

3. Click the 'First Category' name in the tree to select it, then click the Category Name text box to start editing the name.
4. Replace the words 'First Category' with 'Food' which is the name of our first example category. Press the ENTER key to confirm. The new category name appears in the tree.
   
5. Lets create two sub-categories Food at home, and Food away from home.
6. Click on the Food category in the budget tree to make sure it is still selected. Now click the Add Sub-category button twice:
7. Click on the first empty sub-category to select it. Click on the Category Name text box if it is not already selected and type Food at home.
8. Now press the DOWN arrow on the keyboard. This will shift focus to the next category in the budget tree (which is the second sub-category we created in step 6) and also confirm the edit. The focus should still be in the Category Name text box so we can type in the name of the second sub-category which is Food away from home. Press the ENTER key to confirm.

   Note: You can confirm an edit of Category Name or Category Amount by pressing either the UP or DOWN arrow keys, which also selects the previous/next category, or by pressing the ENTER key.

   Our budget tree should now look like this:
   
9. Now we'll enter the expenditure amounts associated with these two categories. Click on Food at home in the budget tree to select that category. Now click on the Category Amount text box. Type in $3,154.

   Note: It doesn't matter if you type in the currency symbol and comma - the program will ignore them and just accept the figures.

10. Press the DOWN key which selects the next category - Food away from home - and confirms the previous entry. Notice that the amount $3,154 is propagated up through the parent categories, Food and Total Budget.
    
11. Now type in the annual expenditure for Food away from home, which is $2,280. Press the ENTER key to confirm. The amounts in the tree change to reflect the added expenditure.