10 top ways to budget with prepaid cards:

1. Save on interest charges and over-the-limit and late fees by switching from a credit card to a prepaid MasterCard or Visa prepaid card. Elise Young, 31, from O'Fallon, Ill., is a medical transcriptionist and a prepaid Visa card user. She began budgeting with prepaid cards almost a year ago. "I like the idea of a prepaid card more than a credit card because I'm not getting myself deep into debt, and I'm not paying thousands of dollars a year in interest charges," says Young. "I also don't have to worry about the impact that carrying a lot of credit card debt might have on my credit score."

2. Use prepaid cards instead of checks, and avoid those $45-a-pop overdraft charges. Enter your prepaid card number online in the same way you would use your credit or debit card to pay a bill. "It's better than sending a check because I don't have to worry about us accidentally overspending our checking account before the checks for bills can clear. I even like it more than paying by recurring automatic debit from my checking account because I know the money is on the prepaid card when I sit down to pay a bill," says Young.

3. Budget toward your bon voyage. "This year, my husband and I have been putting $50 onto a specific prepaid Visa every time each of us gets paid. That card will only be used for our trip, and best of all, we won't come home to an exorbitant credit card bill that we'll pay for months," says Young.