Planning and accounting for the family budget is a discipline that needs to be studied, and one day on training is far from enough. Knowledge, practice and experience, as well as the ability to deny yourself something for the sake of planned expenses or savings - are the main components of effective planning with a positive result.
Maintaining home accounting
Maintaining home accounting is an important part of every day. Paying only 5-10 minutes a day of such "financial reporting", you will thus form financial responsibility in the family and, in addition, on your examples and experience, help your children avoid many problems with family finances in the future.
The planning and accounting of the family wallet consists in monitoring daily incomes and expenses, analyzing useful and useless purchases, planning the budget in order to achieve long-term goals, regular formation of savings in order to ensure financial security in cases of unforeseen force majeure (illness, loss of work, etc.).
Analysis of the "family wallet"
The beginning of planning of the family budget consists in the analysis of family incomes and expenses. To do this, you need to write down all incomes and expenses every day for a month. Naturally, there will be only a few items for income, everything else will be your expenses. At the end of the month, you need to conduct a thorough analysis of all purchases made. You will be very surprised when you calculate the amount spent on, so to speak, "the little things of life." Having received a real picture of family expenses, you can start planning your family budget. That is, the next period will be planning and analysis.
Thus, having learned to analyze and plan, you can begin to form a family budget. The family budget, as a rule, is made common for a year, and detailed, by months. Creating a family budget, you need, first of all, to identify the main items of income and expenditure. Thanks to the creation of such a structure, one can analyze what money is spent on, and the costs of which items can be reduced. The main thing is that the expenditure items should not exceed, but, on the contrary, be smaller, income items or equal to them. "Deficiency of the family budget" is unacceptable!
Effective planning rules
In order for the family plan to be useful and effective, one must adhere to several main principles and rules for effective planning:
- In order to avoid "crises" in family finances, one must know how to say "no" in time. This applies to many unplanned purchases that we make. Living by the principle: "I want to buy everything I want and when I want," - this you destroy the stability of your family finances.
- The regularity of conducting a "family wallet" is the guarantee of order in the wallet itself.
- Pay special attention to the issue of savings, without them you can not. Minimum, but it should be.
- Regularly discuss the financial matters of the family with your husband or partner.
- The main rule of managing family finances is creating your own family budget management model. This is especially true for young families. The greatest mistake is attempts to introduce rules and principles into the family, which were vaccinated in the families of parents. A preliminary discussion of this issue is a pledge of conflict-free relations in the future.
- Learn to conduct regular price analysis and look for sources of cheaper purchases.
The main law of the family economy
The management of family finances is a matter of family and coordinated, that is, all items of expenditure need to be discussed together with their second half. And in everything there should be honesty ! Hiding the true value of your purchases, real incomes or debts can act destructively not only in terms of financial trust, but also in marriage itself.
Why you need savings
"Our joint salary is enough only to subsistence and to pay for utilities. What kind of savings under such conditions can we talk about? ", Complains Victoria. Yes, in fact, the salaries of many families are often not enough to save something and postpone. Nevertheless, as I said above, if you analyze all the items of expenditure, you can find a large proportion of unnecessary family expenses.
At rather low incomes it is important to find additional sources of income. Analyze everything that you know how to do. Perhaps, sew, knit, perform control or coursework, work as an English tutor, - there are a lot of possible options for additional earnings. The main thing is just to want! In any case, 1% of all family income can always be deferred "for the day to come."
Another additional point of the issue of saving and accumulating family finances is the rule of saving money for something. Want to buy a TV or a car - put aside the money. Having family money savings will always save you in case of any crisis or unforeseen circumstances.
On what to save?
An additional source of income and, as a consequence, a source of savings can be the effective economy of family finances. Analyze all items of expenditure and think on what you can save. For example, if you eat in a dining room or a cafe, it's much cheaper to have food taken with you from home. If you drive your own car or taxi, then public transport will cost much less. Analyze the cost of water and electricity, the cost of purchased cosmetics or household chemicals. Surely, you will find sources of additional financial resources for the family budget.
Types of family budget
Joint family finances are the ideal of a family wallet. But, it happens that this ideal does not coincide with the foundations and rules of a particular family. Consider the main types of family budget.
Joint budget
Such a budget provides that the incomes of each member of the family go to the "general cash register" and are shared together. This type of family budget is seen as the most "transparent" management of family finances, as the spouses do not have secrets from each other about the size of their own salary.
Share of the budget
With this type of family budget, all family expenses are calculated and are divided equally. This distribution of family finances can cause a lot of controversy and resentment. First, it is not always easy to distribute who eats what. For example, a spouse who eats less offense if he pays an equal amount of money in food. In addition, a spouse earning less will also feel strangled, since his personal expenses will have a smaller amount of money.
Separate budget
This is the most common model of managing family finances in Western Europe. Spouses feel independently financially, manage their finances themselves and pay their bills. General family spending, such as educating children, paying utility bills, joint loans, are paid by spouses in the fold.
Time is money
Do not waste time, start with planning today. Thus, tomorrow you can avoid undesirable expenses and thereby save a bit of family finances. Remember that only discipline and a daily financial record will bring a really positive result.
Advantages of planning and accounting for the family budget
Thanks to the financial planning of the family budget, you can achieve your goals much faster and more efficiently. Thanks to a well-organized family budget, you save your money. In addition, thanks to the family budget, you will always be prepared for unforeseen situations. And remember that the family budget ordered and coordinated between spouses is an important factor that has a positive impact on family relations. Successful financial planning and accounting for you!