Family Budget: Do you have one?

Heavenisaplace

Someone in the mom group I belong to on FB put up this Family Budget article  - and I am thinking we need to start one ASAP. We don't spend like crazy but we aren't that careful or organized. Do you have a budget? Any tips? I want us to get more in our savings account.

weberm05

I guess we are different, we have no sort of budget but that works for us.  We both know how much money we bring in and i pay all the bills so i know how much is going out.  We don't spend like crazy but if there is something we want we get it.  And we know if there is some sort of crazy crazy emergency we could always get a small personal loan or use a credit card.

 I do take so much a month and put a little aside for taxes so it's not a big shock when they are do.

hmp1

We sorta budget. DH keeps a spreadsheet with every bill we have and the amount, date it is due, and date it is paid. He even went as far to code it to highlight yellow when due within 2 weeks and red when due within a week. It is very easy to see exactly what we pay in our monthly bills. We have set amounts that go directly from our paychecks into different savings so that is never in our checking. We have amounts that we pay to ourselves into separate checking accounts for our fun money that we can spend however we want. I pretty much spend roughly the same amount on groceries every week and our diapers and formula are delivered and is the same price every month.

WhitewaterJennny

We just started to do a family budget this month. So far so good. No tips yet but I am hoping it will get us started on actually saving more money than spending! Good Luck

smileybabyboy

hmp&mrj:

We sorta budget. DH keeps a spreadsheet with every bill we have and the amount, date it is due, and date it is paid. He even went as far to code it to highlight yellow when due within 2 weeks and red when due within a week. It is very easy to see exactly what we pay in our monthly bills. We have set amounts that go directly from our paychecks into different savings so that is never in our checking. We have amounts that we pay to ourselves into separate checking accounts for our fun money that we can spend however we want. I pretty much spend roughly the same amount on groceries every week and our diapers and formula are delivered and is the same price every month.

 

very similar to this. My DH also has a spreadsheet and keeps track of every expense and where every penny goes from a haircut to a birthday present to bills. We have a coupon organizer that we put a certain amount of money in each slot for groceries, entertainment, Christmas gifts, etc. His system is quite precise but it has helped a lot and helped us to pay off our new car in 3 months.  He gets ideas for this from Dave Ramsey podcasts and books.  

pawstech09

We don't really need a budget, there's enough to cover our monthly bills and some extra to spend or put in the savings account, I handle the spending and H handles the savings account! If he has a bad month or two I'll cut corners on a few things that I normally wouldn't, but otherwise we have a really good system.