Creating & Maintaining a Budget

With the Internet acting as today's modern Pony Express, information on anything and everything is all at the touch of a button. Some may say it's information overload. I would tend to agree with that. There are websites telling you what the best options for your stock portfolio are, blogs letting you know about the hottest in today's fashion, sites telling you that they can "fix" you.  There are literally hundreds of thousands of websites geared towards giving you cookie cutter information on household finances.  Where do you go to get the best information, and how do you fit it to your own needs?  Do you spend countless hours searching through millions of web pages, in the hopes you'll stumble onto what it is you're looking for? 

Balancing the family finances is like trying to walk a tight rope in 60 mile an hour winds.  Some of us grab the reigns and make great progress each and every day, while others struggle with trying to figure out how to make a fabulous dinner for a family of four on $5.37.  I would like to think that I fit into the first group, though, that's always not the case. 

In the last 13 years, being a wife and a mom has taught me many things, one of the most important, is that things change.  There is no way around it, no way to plan for every little detail, and no way of foreseeing all the obstacles that are headed your way.  If you choose to grab hold and face it all head on, chances are you're going to succeed at making your household budget work month to month.  Choosing to run from those obstacles will most certainly set you up for failure. 

There are thousands of household budget templates available for free downloads to try and help you setup, and maintain a monthly household budget.  Truth is however, there is no single budget that will fit everyone, and even the best templates will not accommodate your every need.  Take a look at several of them before deciding on just one to use.

Here are some ideas that have helped out my family over the years:

1.  Involve everyone in the family, yes even the kids.  This is a great way to start teaching your children the responsibilities of finances, and the importance of saving.

2.  Get all your bills and pay stubs together.  Don't forget about Mail in Rebates, money received from surveys etc.

3.  Make a list of what your monthly HOUSEHOLD costs are. IE: mortgage, utilities, insurance food etc.  think of everything it takes each month to run your household. 

4.  Make a list of what you spend on misc. expenses, clothing, books, gas, entertainment, birthdays, subscriptions etc.

5.  Create a saving plan that fits within your budget, and remember to PAY yourself first each week, even if it's only $5.00 to start off with.  Remember that a year of saving just $5.00 is $260 per year. 

6.  To pay off credit card debt faster, when one is paid off, take the money that you were using to pay it off each month, and split that money in half.  Place half of it towards your savings, and the other half, use to increase the next credit card bill you have. 

7.  When using coupons, you're saving money.  Take the dollar amount that you saved, or for that matter, even half of what you saved, and do one of two things.  Pay off more debt, or put the money saved by using coupons directly into a savings account.  The same goes towards rebates you receive.  Saving just $20.00 per week using coupons could potentially add up to over $1000 after just 52 weeks! 

8.  When creating a monthly budget, don't forget to keep track of mail in rebates, and use that money as income received.  This will vary from month to month, but you'll be surprised at the end of the year, just how much money you received back. 

9.  Putting a budget on paper is a great thing to do, but we often write a budget down, and stick it in a drawer, only to pull it out at the end of the month, and realize you didn't reach your goal.  Hang it on the fridge, instead as a daily reminder.  Place pictures of what your goals are around it.  Use those goals as encouragement.

10.  And finally, if you didn't stick to your budget for that month, look it over again, and see where you went wrong.  Don't let it discourage you.  Use the information to create a better budget for the following month.  Remember a household budget changes over the course of a year, sometimes, you get hit with an expense you didn't know was coming.  Use that knowledge to build surprise expenses into your next budget. 

Have you reached some financial goals by budgeting?  Leave a comment and let everyone know how you did it!  Become inspiration for those who are getting discouraged.