Family budgeting is a sensitive topic. Each family distributes money differently. If the spouses are businessmen, then most often they allocate a certain share from the personal budget for general expenses, or everything is spelled out in the marriage contract .

The importance of managing a family budget

If the budget is shared, it is important to be able to plan it. Budget planning makes it possible to take into account all items of income and expenses, so you can control cash flows. It is very important to understand that expenditure items should fit into your income. To do this, you need to analyze the income for the previous month and predict them for the next period. Based on the figures obtained, first make notes on the main expenses.

Main items of expenditure

To get started, mark all the mandatory expenses that you have every month. First of all, this is paying utility bills, loans (which you cannot overdue), keeping a child in a kindergarten or school, family meals, and others that are classified as “mandatory”.

Additional expenses

Additional expenses will be those of the articles that you plan to make, except for the mandatory ones. For example, you expect to buy outerwear for the season or furniture for the room. You may not have enough money left, so you decide to save a little. But the amount set aside for these purposes also belongs to the category of additional ones. You can put it in the plan based on the balance of funds.

In addition, there are still unplanned expenses that arise along the way, for example, the iron breaks down, you have to buy a new one. For such sudden expenses, also keep an approximate amount.

Financial Goals

Without planning for the future, there is no movement towards a bright "tomorrow". Therefore, it is very important to look one step ahead and set aside money for your financial goals. For example, you know that the child will need to go to college, education costs money. Perhaps for this purpose you will open a deposit, or buy mutual funds (shares in investment funds). In any case, for the long term, you need to work now. And, of course, allocate a certain amount from your budget.

Pay yourself

Before you (virtually) distribute all the expected income, think about one more important aspect of the money cycle in your life. A conscious person, of course, first of all seeks to close existing debt obligations. But sometimes, having paid everyone, you yourself are left with nothing. We will not do moralizing about how harmful it is to take loans. But, in fairness, it should be noted that every working member of the family works not only to pay off debts, they also want to please themselves with something. Therefore, you can make it a rule to set aside 10 percent of each income part and put them into work (that is, this part of your earnings can bring new money, however, this is another topic). But still, count for interest, how much you have earned over the past year. And what do you have left? And nothing - everything is spent and even not enough. If money is not counted, there is always not enough of it. But if it is rationally distributed, then it will also remain for rest.

How to make ends meet

A large number of families do not have a budget at all. Expenses are spontaneous, which is why they so often exceed income, which is why some people later wonder: it’s not clear where the money went, or they say that the money went through their fingers. That's right, money loves an account, and in order for it to be carried, you must be able to count it. But first you need to be able to attract money into your life. We talked about this in one of the previous topics.