By GALTime.com Finance Contributor Jodi Grundig
Creating a personal family budget is essential for every family, regardless of your financial position. It's the only way to make sure that what you are spending aligns with your values and goals. It's easy to create a family budget, once you follow a few steps.
Step One: Tracking Your Spending
If you are really going to be committed to creating the best family budget possible, you need to know the situation you are dealing with. The best way to do this is to keep track of your spending. Any time you use cash or your debit card, keep track of what you are buying and spending. Carry around a little notebook if necessary. I'd recommend either setting up an Excel sheet or just a notebook paper, but either way, you should track everything. In addition, when you receive your credit card statement or pay bills, keep track of those expenses also. Within a month, you should know how much you spend by category. Click here for the categories I'd recommend tracking:
Once you have a good amount of information accumulated, you'll be better prepared to put together your budget.
Next step - analyze your expenses. I'll get to that in my next post. Stay tuned!
Related:
What is 'Family Finance' Anyway?Test Your Marriage-Money Skills
Are You in A Mine, Yours or Ours Relationship?
5 Money Rules EVERYONE Can Follow
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