Budgeting with a family in mind is much more difficult than managing one person?s finances alone. Unexpected expenses arise, and many more factors play a role when children are involved, including educational costs, extracurricular activity fees and more. Carefully detailing expenses and income in one central place, setting financial goals, and always overestimating expenses, can help a family best manage money and save more.
Create Spreadsheet Solutions
Use a spreadsheet to keep track of finances. Plenty of free tools are available for this purpose, including widely used programs like Microsoft Excel. For those who prefer being able to adjust finances on the go, there are a slew of digital personal finance apps for smart phones. Record expenses from all areas of family life divided by category on the same spreadsheet, including taxes, utilities, mortgage or rent payments, loan payments, auto insurance, gas, car maintenance. Define categories however they best apply for the family?s particular situation. For instance, some families may choose to have a miscellaneous budget expense category, while others may include items under more specific categories, such as Educational Costs or Family Vacations.
Every spreadsheet should feature a net income balance. To get this figure, calculate the total monthly expenses from each spreadsheet category, and then subtract that amount from the total monthly family income. Set Financial Goals??Don?t just record amounts ? set financial goals and strive to meet them. Think in terms of future needs and desires, like vacations, college funds, retirement, weddings and the like. Sort the list according to the amount of time the family wishes to achieve each goal (for instance, having a certain amount of money saved for college in ten years). Once a family lists specific goals and timeframes, the next step is determining how to achieve them.
Every financial goal a family sets may involve a different strategy. Saving a certain amount of money from each paycheck, setting aside money from tax returns, or taking on a part time job are all viable means of achieving a family?s monetary goals. You can also regularly check for discount auto insurance quotes online to help in achieving your financial goals.
Think More, Not Less?
Estimate any uncertain expenses to be higher than anticipated. This way, instead of falling short of the desired net family income, the end result will always be equal to or more than predicted. It may be advisable to mark up well-defined expenses as well, if only to leave a financial safety net.
If completely unsure of a reasonable estimate, try to record the family?s expenses for a week or two. Take those results and extrapolate them to account for the family?s monthly expenses.
Keeping track of family finances can seem like a daunting task. By keeping an updated budget spreadsheet, determining long and short-term financial goals, and overestimating expenses, budgeting for a family becomes a much easier undertaking.
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