7 Easy Steps To Budget Your Family’s Monthly Expenses
Having a hard time “stretching” your budget?
Whether you have your own family or you are single I know you’re doing this – wait – which one? The stretching of your budget or the budgeting itself? Are you confused? To set things right here are my own truths for seven easy steps to budget your family’s monthly expenses.
BUDGETING? WHAT’S THAT?
First and foremost do you know the meaning of it? This is a very crucial factor for you. Why? Because you cannot do something you didn’t understand. Let me help you with this one.
According to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary budgeting is “the amount of money that is available for, required for, or assigned to a particular purpose”.
Thanks to Merriam Webster it’s given meaning is understandable. Now let’s explain it further.
The definition has four parts. These are (and with each corresponding explanations):
- ‘the amount of money’ – refers to the total earnings of an individual or the combined income of a family.
- ‘that is available for’ – pertains to the money ready for use which called “cash on hand”.
- ‘or required for’ – the compulsory needs or necessity of a family that should be met or satisfy.
- ‘assigned to a particular purpose’ – the allocation of the money for each family’s needs.
Keeping all of these factors in mind we will come up to a clearer picture that budgeting is simply you, having a plan on how to spend your income for your family’s expenses. So how will you do budgeting on a monthly basis?
Based on the above statement I compiled seven easy steps to budget your family’s monthly expenses and in the end for you to satisfy your family’s needs. In the succeeding illustrations I will be using Peso Denomination, but you can also use other monetary denominations based on your country of residence. Let’s discuss it.
- Know the Exact Take Home Money
You should know personally how much money you or your husband bring into the family. Most of us usually know the estimate amount only or worse the ‘guess’ amount. Simple reasons like you are very busy in other things or you just don’t ask your husband about his pay might be the culprits. You should be aware of the exact initial amount where you will create your budget plan, because if not then how can you start?
Is this so important Lai? Is this true? You may say.
Yes! We can’t neglect this part. I personally made this mistake.
For over five years I have been focusing myself on rearing our kids and have told my husband to take in charge in our family’s budget. Being new to motherhood I don’t want other things to preoccupy me but my kids and since I don’t know the budget I just asked my husband to buy anything that our family needs. At first there is no problem with that set up. But after sometime we discovered that we didn’t even save some money in that 5-year time span. Yes we have savings but we didn’t add more to it. All of this happened because I didn’t give any attention to our budget. So now I’m making amends. I’m taking in charge on our budget and should be more concern about it. Since now it’s not only me and my husband in the picture– but our children too.
So knowing how much money you or your husband is providing to your family is a must.
What we are talking about here is the net income. Maybe you know the monthly gross income of your husband but you actually didn’t know his monthly net income. There is a difference between the two. Monthly Gross Income is the amount of the salary before the taxes and other deductions. Monthly Net Income is the amount of the salary after the taxes and other deductions. Check out his payslip for that info. You will see the gross income pay at the topmost part and the net income pay at the bottom. That amount is the take home money. Now you know where you will start your steps in budgeting your family’s finances”!
2. Allot Twenty Percent (20%) As Your Family’s Savings
Since you know now the correct amount of the take home pay you can now make a wise act – you doing a conscious saving. This means before anything else you will allocate twenty percent of your take home pay for your family’s savings. You will deduct beforehand a portion of the net income and tag it as your Family’s Savings.
Most people do save after spending. They usually buy first their needs before they will save. But do you think it’s a good and bright idea? Both of us would agree no. When you do this way you will not save anything at all. That’s for sure. What we want is us being conscious savers and not the other way around. This is a great start for your budget since you intentionally set aside a specific part of your budget to be your savings. But you may ask “What is Saving”?
MEANING OF SAVING
According to Merriam Webster Dictionary, savings “is the act or an instance of economizing.” In simple terms you are economizing when you spend your money less and save it. By doing so your family will have a money ready for future use, like if you want it to grow you could put it in an investment. Or your savings can be use for the education of your babies in future. Just keep in mind that you will not use this savings but for your family’s future financial needs.We will tackle this more in my future articles.
So if your take home money is Php 20,000 per month you will set aside 20% of it for your family’s savings. It’s Php 4,000 to be exact. You will come up now to a new cash on hand amounting to 16,000. This is your adjusted take home money and where will you deduct your family’s expenses.
After you have saved 20% of your earnings and have your adjusted take home money, what’s next?
3. List Down the Expenses
After you already save a portion of your family’s net earnings I can say that this part of budgeting is your family’s own and unique smorgasbord. This is where you will see the different things your family needs, wants or anticipates to. Think and analyze the different kinds of expenses and types of spending your family has. You need a pen and a paper for this activity.
We will classify this into two groups. One is for your Family Needs and the other one is for your Family Wants. Simple words but very tricky ones. Each family has its own needs and wants. Maybe for you strolling at the mall is a need but in true sense it is only what you ‘want’. To give some head’s up a need refers to the things that everybody should have to live. It’s the essentials for a family to survive. While want refers to things that a person desires to have or to do but not necessarily required for him to live. Best example is buying a designer’s bag or an expensive latte.
For your benefit and convenience I made a sample outline for the typical monthly expenses of a family. You can modify it based on your own family’s needs and wants. With these you will understand how to budget your family’s monthly expenses.
4. Create Major and Minor Expense Groups
From your Family Needs and Family Wants Groups you can now identify which are the most important from the least important ones. With these you can create your Major Expenses and Minor Expenses Groups. Is budgeting so easy if you will just plan in this way? Definitely!
From your Major and Minor Expenses Groups you will see now your Expense Categories. Choose whatever you want to include in your Expense Categories. But based on the renamed groups you can somehow determine what are most essentials ones, the true needs of your family. Clearly it belongs to Major Expenses Group, right? So we will now be focusing on this group and set aside the minor ones.
We can almost see the body of your budget! Are you excited to complete the seven steps of budgeting your family’s monthly expenses? Put all your focus here as we build it. Keep it up!
5. Put Corresponding Amounts on Your List
Since this is a monthly basis budget you can now write the precise amounts for each expense categories. Do this with your husband (if you are married) or with your parents (if you are single) and work together to determine the correct amounts. Writing exact amounts and adding some allowance are good ways also to avoid shortages. Remember that you are filling in these blanks with your new and adjusted net pay.
Make the necessary adjustments or allowances with this modified net pay. If you see that you’re short in some of your Expenses Categories look for others in the list and balance it altogether. Maybe you put more amounts in others than what is needed or the other way around.
Then simply add all the expenses and with this you will see if there is still money left. You will assign that money for a Category that we will call the “Excess Cash” of the family. What is this about? Read the next step to know more.
6. Anticipate Other Expenses
You might think you write down all of your family’s monthly expenses but did you include the unexpected ones? Like when you buy medicine if your child gets sick? Or when the gas tank of your stove depletes and needed a refill for you to cook your evening meal? Where will you get the money for those unforeseeable things? To answer this is where your budget’s Excess Cash enters the scene. I also use this in our own budget. I model my sample budget list on a family with one child.
Excess Cash is for the random and unexpected expenses that can be happen in your family’s daily existence. I’m sure you know this. Apart from the major needs there are also some minor expenses that can occur in day to day lives. These are some examples:
To have an idea of the whole picture of the budget list here it is:
Now your budget list is complete! There’s only one more step to follow to succeed on budgeting your family’s monthly expenses. Let’s use it now!
7. Use Labeled Envelopes For Segregation
We will be using your newly created budget list plan for the physical segregation of your take home money. You can use envelopes or something that you could use to sort out your money paper bills. Physical money segregation is important for you to realize your budget goals.
Labeling envelopes greatly helps you to know where you will be getting money for a specific need of the family. Label each envelope according to each need. Write the word “Savings” for the envelope of your allotted savings. Tag other envelopes according to each Expenses Categories of your Major Expenses. Mark “Excess Cash Fund” in the envelope of your budget for Random Expenses.
Based on your budget list count now how much money you will put on each envelope.
So how many envelopes did you completed? Mine’s twelve! Whew!
And now you’re set and your budget is complete with only seven steps! What a relief! Congrats! All you have to do is to implement it and follow it wholeheartedly!
To make sure that you will succeed in your budget goals and to avoid ‘stretching’ it, these are some of my sincere tips to you:
- Faithfully follow what you plan – your efforts of putting your budget all together with become worthless once you did not apply it in your everyday life.
- Make a log – If you can monitor your everyday expenses by making a log and writing each and every amount of money you will spend from your budget then do so. I personally do it to for my Excess Cash Fund. I want to know where and when we spend it. Especially the small amounts, you will be surprise on how much your family spends per day.
- Make being thrifty a habit – Less spending is more! Teach yourself to be frugal for most of the time. It might be difficult for you right now but it will bring you more comfort in time. It depends all on your determination to save for your family.
Who would say that budgeting is hard? What you only need is a simple planning with your family, some basic math and a firm resolution that you will follow your family’s monthly budget plan
What can you say about this article? Does it give you more knowledge about budgeting?Do you experience the same problem in budgeting? Let us hear your thoughts in the comments. =)
- Published in English Articles, finances, Helpful Tips
7 Practical Tips For Your First Time Pregnancy
You are pregnant! Congrats!
And this is your first time ever to be in this state of motherhood, so my next words to you is “How do you feel about it?”
You might say “I’m great Lai and actually this is the best thing that ever happened to me at this moment of my life”.
Yes, what you said is technically right. It’s your baby and being pregnant is one of the significant milestones in your life as a women. But what I am asking to you is “How do you REALLY feel about it?” – after all the cheering and congratulatory messages from your family and friends. Let me share you first my own feelings that time when I was in your shoes.
MY MOMENT OF DISCOVERY
I am not the first one who ‘detected’ that I am pregnant.
One of my closest friend saw that there is something new in me when we were attending a convention for our faith. She told me that there’s something different in me, in my body and in my curves and she thinks that I am pregnant. I didn’t know what to say to her. Me and my husband were in fourth year of our marriage and that time it didn’t occurred to me that I can get pregnant too easily because I have a Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) even before I am single. Having PCOS means you will experience an irregular menstruation so there’s a less probability that you could get pregnant because you have an abnormal ovulation. Will tackle this more in my future articles.
To verify my friend’s prediction I used a pregnancy test and viola!She’s right! What I felt that moment cannot be explained by one word. It’s a mixture of different feelings – though I’m happy I also felt overwhelmed, surprised, shocked and appalled.. maybe because this ‘preggy thing’ is new to me, I didn’t know what to expect.
I am truly happy when I discovered that I was pregnant but I am also undeniably afraid of the unknown that is happening to me that time. Happiness and anxiety submerged and I can’t control it. Did you feel it too?
So from this genuine experience of mine I want to share some practical tips and sincere advice for you my fellow mommy who carries a child in her body for the first time.
1.Don’t Get Too Nervous
This is the most important tip that I will give to you dear mommy. Though you can’t avoid it, you still can control it. Why? Your stress has a very big impact on your child’s present fetal state and your anxiety can also affect your child’s future emotional state. When a mother worries a lot, grumps a lot and always irritated about everything when she’s pregnant, it could affect her baby’s personality and temper in future.
Is this the truth Lai? You may say.
Yes! Though I never knew it at first when I was carrying my first child, after three years I somehow understand it. My proof? My eldest daughter Keilah Bree.
As a first time pregnant I’m a very bothered mommy. I usually worried about anything – yes anything – about the baby inside me. Some trivial thoughts to a more serious questions like ‘Is she still moving?’ ‘Is her heart’s still beating?’ ‘Did I eat the right food for her?’ ‘Can I make it to normal delivery?’ or ‘Maybe she can eat her poop if I get overdue?’always linger in my mind.. I can’t help it because I’m a first time pregnant mom right? We are entitled to feel this way because, this is a new thing to us and for some reasons there’s no one telling us what we should or we shouldn’t feel about it. So what we are going do is to just help ourselves and basically just do what we think is right – to overthink it all and flood ourselves with worries and negativity. The result? Not good at all.
On my first pregnancy, given that I always worry, I usually feel a sudden cramps or sharp pains in my belly. Somehow my unpleasant emotions are affecting my baby and its also affecting me physically. And after three years of giving birth to Kei I saw that it also affects her emotionally. She’s just like me – a nervous and worried kid. I can’t undo the after effects of it now but all I can do now is to manage her and deal with her in best way I could.
So moms-to-be please don’t stress yourselves just because you can. Think first its effects on your baby. That is the most important thing now.
2. Give Your Self Time To Adjust
Being pregnant is not easy and no one expects you to know everything about it, so mom be good to yourself and take it easy. Remember this is your first hand experience of being pregnant so its understandable that you have a little or zero knowledge about it. So give yourself a time to absorb or internalize – your new situation.
For sure you will get overwhelm for this new chapter of your life so give yourself some time to adjust from it. It’s like a first time to ride an airplane – you need to ‘feel’ it first and get acquainted on these new experience – so you will never get afraid.
3. Anticipate Changes In You
Be prepare to know that sooner or later you will experience major changes on yourself – physically and emotionally.
Physically not only on the bump part but also you can see changes on your skin, hair, face, hands and feet.
For most of the women when they get conceive, their skin will get more dry and flaky. Hair’s natural radiance and shine might get lost also. Your face will become more oily or more dry, depends how your hormones will work when you become pregnant. Not to mention what will happen to the size of your nose and your cheek! And also your feet will swell! These physiological changes in you might make you scream – not out of joy but out of panic – but hey all these things are normal for a pregnant momma like you!
Emotional changes will also occur to you. Here comes what we can call “Mommy Blues” – because you – ‘the mommy’ will become more sensitive and more emotional in everything that matters to you. So if you’re a ‘cool girl’ when it’s still you and your man in the picture, you will be a ‘crying girl’ now that you have your baby inside you.
4. Educate Yourself In This New Journey
Just think that motherhood is your new assignment. There’s no harm if you will read articles, books or sites (like this mine) about all of the facts that you want to know about pregnancy and parenthood.
Personally I buy a book about it (I don’t know where I put it now) but the point here is you should be eager to know and you should be willing to learn about this new phase in your life. And for the record I also borrow a book from my friend about baby names! It’s very fun and exciting! You could even browse it online by clicking this ‘baby names’. This insights and ideas will prepare you for this new journey to motherhood. So don’t be lazy and do your homework!
5. Document Your First Times!
Write a diary or personal notes where you can pour out your heart and say your thoughts about your pregnancy. As for me I didn’t do that but I collect and save my prenatal check-up notebooks, my ultrasound results and other paraphernalia like the pregnancy tests that I used (yes I did save it!) and the hospital name tag when I gave birth.
And don’t forget to have a maternity photo shoot! Like what I did on my first! You wanna know from where studio I got it? Just email me and I will tell you!
Putting your first experiences in writing or in picture will make it more memorable to you. This will serve as your remembrance and when the time that you want to look back to it, then you have something to read on and look upon to – reminiscing it with your husband and your grandchildren in future.
6. Prepare Ahead Of Time
You will still have to wait for nine months for your due date but it doesn’t mean you can procrastinate and don’t do a thing!
You can prepare now or as soon as you wanted to! Jot down the things that you and your baby needs before and after you gave birth – the newborn essentials.
For your own health needs, don’t forget your daily prenatal vitamins and medications, your daily glass of milk and your eight hours of sleep. Don’t skip your prenatal check-ups to your OB Gynecologist because with this you will know the real-time condition of your baby.
If you can save right now for your baby’s arrival then save now. Allot a portion of your salary or your budget to your baby’s needs. You will get surprise on how much you could spend from the time you will see your baby in your ultrasound check-ups up to the moment that you will touch her physically. So having a baby means hard work and commitment!
7. Just Seize Your Moment!
Enjoy it while it lasts! Carrying a baby in your body is a very exceptional thing that you can experience in your life! It’s a pure miracle from God and no one could ever understand it until it happens to her personally.
Until now it amazes me when I remember the time when I got pregnant to my eldest daughter. And how much more when I got pregnant for the second time to Kendall!
I can say that those two moments of my life are my most cherished memories as a women. The feelings can’t be explain by words. Only the mother and her child knows it. It connects them perfectly. And it lasts forever. I love the feeling that there’s someone inside of you that you need to protect to and nurture too.
So to you my first-time mommy just enjoy your pregnancy and don’t worry too much. Be confident and never think that you can’t do it, because you can momma! We are the most brave and most loving person in this world! We are mothers!
So I hope with these seven tips and several useful advice from me I somehow help you and give you some knowledge that you will use on your first time pregnancy. Did I empower you? Show it here by commenting below. I would love to hear it from you =)
- Published in English Articles, Helpful Tips, Motherhood Life
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