Home » Partners & Parents » Family Finance » Beginning Budgets

Beginning Budgets

© Lori Bader

A year ago, I became a stay at home mother of two small children. Until that point, I had never had to budget or keep careful track of our family finances. In fact, I had no idea how to begin keeping a budget! Once I set out to learn how to start and keep a budget, I found that it isn't as hard as I had imagined.

The first step in setting up your budget is to list all of your expenditures. A good way to do this is to go through your credit card receipts, bills, and to keep a list of all the money you spend and checks you write on a daily basis. Doing this for a period of time (you can start with just one month if that is what you have records for) will enable you to see exactly where your money is going. Next, organize your expenditures into categories. Some examples are loan payments, clothing, food, entertainment, rent or mortgage, gasoline, and medical expenses. Resist the urge to lump expenditures into a "miscellaneous" category. Once you see how much money you are spending in each category, you may be surprised at where your money is going. Finally, you can sit down and determine how much money you will need each month to put aside for each category.

For me, the hardest part of starting a budget was being honest with myself and admitting where I was spending every penny. Once you get over the stomachache that comes along with that hurdle, you are on your way to keeping a family budget. I have also found that it helps to use a home budget book (available at any office supply store) for keeping track of expenditures. These books have columns and rows already set up and all you have to do is fill in the dollar amounts. Then you can easily add up the columns and rows.

In my search for how to set up a family budget, I found helpful, inexpensive resources to be my friends and classes through the local Parks and Recreation Department. For those of you who are hesitant to take on this task on your own, there is help. You can find more information regarding budgets and even some personal help for a fee at Budget Central located at www.tuliptreepress.com. If you don't already have a budget set up, go ahead and start one. I think you will be surprised at how easy it really is.

The copyright of the article Beginning Budgets in Family Finance is owned by . Permission to republish Beginning Budgets in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.