It is difficult to overstate the importance of the technological legacy left by Steve Jobs given that he created several products that have revolutionized existing industries or, more often than not, created markets under their own steam. 

The Apple iPad, launched in 2010, was a surprise hit because many assumed a tablet that resembled and behaved like an oversized iPhone would not find an audience. 

With millions of units sold and hundreds of copycats proliferating, it is impossible to see the iPad as anything other than a roaring success and in many arenas, from education and business to personal finance and entertainment, it is having an impact. 

What makes the iPad special is the growing library of applications designed exclusively for it, covering a diverse array of functions from practical apps designed to help you apply for financial products like online loans to creative apps that are used by pop stars and budding musicians to craft new songs. 

The iPad is having a clear effect on the way in which people are managing their finances because with a variety of inexpensive or free applications you can easily create a monthly budget, pay your bills on time and make your cash work for you with online loans and payment card applications. 

What makes the iPad a more convenient platform for budgeting than say, a laptop, is that it is considerably more portable without being drastically more expensive. 

In addition, the most popular budgeting apps follow the Apple ethos of making the interface as simple as possible without compromising the power of the tools put at the disposal of the user. 

For example, Budgets for iPad is one of the most frequently downloaded free budgeting apps created for the Apple tablet. 

It is so popular because its graphics take advantage of the high-resolution 9.7-inch display of the iPad and it uses approachable graphics, graphs and charts to illustrate the state of your finances in a manageable manner. 

In its free form you will have to deal with advertisements, but you can also invest in the paid-for edition to remove these minor annoyances. 

Budgets for iPad lets you input all of your income, outgoings, bills, savings accounts, credit cards and online loans into a single application. 

You can then track when payments need to be made, how much disposable cash you have available and how you can appraise the overall health of your budget. 

You can export your finances from this app and many others in a variety of formats, from spreadsheets to web-friendly HTML, so it is suitable for both business and personal users. 

In the past, it would have been necessary to keep endless paper records up to date, but by using the iPad, you can manage your finances and make alterations within a few quick taps, freeing you up to get on with more important things. 

Other popular iPad compatible budgeting apps include iXpenseIt which helps you track what you have spent and makes it easy to claim for any business expenditure, although this is designed for the iPhone and so lacks the graphical sparkle of full iPad apps. 

The flexibility of the iPad's software and hardware means that it is simple to see how your financial affairs are doing on a minute to minute basis, helping you avoid fees for late payment of bills or exceeding your overdraft. This makes Apple's tablet an invaluable tool for those who want to balance the books in the modern era.

I know some people save every receipt and enter each one into Quicken or Excel each week. Not something I do, but I could see how it could be addictive, while taking up quite a lot of time.

I use Mint to track my budget, which helps keep me on track. But I also have an excel spreadsheet to track my cash accounts and bills - so I know when I get my paycheck what bills need to come out of it, and how much can be transferred to the savings account, for example. Another spreadsheet tracks my net worth, broken down into various components. Another spreadsheet looks at what kind of return my different mutual funds are earning, and what percent of my money I have invested in each.

And you know what? All those Excel spreadsheets are my idea of a good time some days! My theory is that tracking expenses and income is fun for the same reason that playing video games is fun. Except instead of stats like "attack" and "strength," I am tracking stats like net worth and percent increase in savings from prior month.

Do you find that you enjoy tracking your expenses in great detail? Or do you wish you could just ignore it all? I think a lot of us like the feeling of control that knowing what is happening in our bank accounts gives us.

Sovereign Bank sponsored a video competition where they gave filmmakers a debit card statement and challenged them to come up with a video that came up with a "story" for the transactions on the statement. (Winners got $8,000 and a free trip to Cannes 2011.) For those of us who make it a goal to check up on our bank statements, we might relate to the sentiment expressed by this man in the winning video. HE certainly will never be surprised by an overdrawn account (This post is sponsored by Santander):

My car is a good example. I last got it serviced a few months ago - it was a big milestone, and cost me about $500. I certainly didn't realize I'd have to work that much into my budget. So today I had my next service. Should be much more affordable right? Everything big got taken care of 5,000 miles ago.

Au contraire. Today's little trip to the car doctor cost me over $250. Apparently my brake pads were too worn down .

So maybe I need to add a new category to my budget: Car servicing, $100/month.

But the unbudgeted expenses seem to come up every month. In October, it was some vet bills for routine vaccinations that were far more expensive than I expected. (I moved recently, and it turns out that vets were much more affordable in my old town.)

In November, I moved to a new apartment, closer to work. So, I had some large deposits to pay, as well as first month's rent. It’s definitely worth the slight increase in rent, but moving always seem to come with expensive Wal-Mart trips for things I "need" at the new place. How have I lived in apartments for the last 5 years but I still don't have everything I could possibly need?

I am adding a category called "unexpected expenses" to my budget during 2011. Of course, some of these expenses shouldn't have been unexpected, so I'll be adding some additional categories to try and plan a little better. And then I can see where I can save money in those categories!

Does anyone else find themselves with large, unexpected expenses month after month? What is your strategy for handling these expenses?