Creating and establishing a family budget helps you stay on track with your finances and pay your bills on time. In any family, unforeseen circumstances arise that can put a dent in your budget and spending habits. It is important to create a budget you can live with. Following a budget closely on a month-to-month basis will allow you to see where your money goes and help you spend your family's money more wisely.
Find a Platform
One of the first things to do when starting a family budget is find a platform to work with. Many people prefer to work with a notebook or writing tablet to write down a list of their expenses and monthly debts. If you have a computer, you can create a spreadsheet in Word or Excel to track what you are spending, when you pay your bills, and how much money is left over at the end of the month. If you are mobile, you can use an application such as Beam Reader, a type of PDF reader for your Blackberry, explains SLG Mobile. There are many mobile applications that allow you to access your computer files and MS Office documents through your phone. This will help you enter cash expenditures while you are away from home so you can merge them to your computer budget file.
Organize
Organize your current bills and expenses. Home-Organizing-Ideas suggests keeping ATM and bill receipts for a month after payment, and add them to your budget worksheet before tossing or shredding them. Sort all your bills for one month by due date. If you have some bills that only come every other month, quarterly or yearly, gather them as well. Basic bills include monthly utilities, credit card statements, association dues, taxes, loan payments and insurance premiums. Next, write down exactly how much you spend per week on gas and transportation. Establish an overall monthly food spending amount by recording all your food expenses, including grocery shopping and how much you spend going out to eat weekly. If you pay out of pocket for health insurance, or you don't have health insurance but have medical expenses, budget in at least 10 percent more than what you usually pay in case there is an emergency. Add miscellaneous items such as church offerings, charitable contributions, child care, pet supplies, school supplies, newspaper or magazine subscriptions, haircuts, salon visits and cash on hand.
Create
Better Budgeting suggests that your basic budget template should include your overall monthly gross household income, vehicle expenses, housing expenses, debts and miscellaneous expenses. On one side of the ledger or spreadsheet, list all your monthly expenses. On the opposite side, list total household income. When both sides are tallied, you should come up with a monthly surplus or shortage. If you have a consistent amount of income coming in monthly, you should be able to work toward creating a surplus. If your income fluctuates or you are an independent contractor, you may experience a shortage in certain months and a surplus in others. You may want to create an additional entry in your budget for surplus. This money can be placed into savings and carried over into the following months to help you stay on track with your bills and expenses. Generally, people create budgets for the month or for the entire year. Once the budget is complete, you will have an overview of how much you spend and possibly where you can make changes to live within your means.
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