Page 51 - How To Set Up a Family Budget The Easy Way

 Other examples of incidental money-guzzlers are parking meters, donuts, shoe
repair, ,raffle tickets, fund-raising, car wash, pay phone. Avoid it is probably unrealistic,
but family budgeting, logging and tracking at least makes us more aware of these

categories and ‘traps’. Have a category in your budget for Miscellaneous and track it for
say 3-6-12 months and see how it adds up!

 Beware the flyers, advertisements, special discounted sales and other retail or sales
tricks of the trade that tempt, entice and lure you in to spend your precious dough!

 Keep on tracking spending and income no matter what. A good tip for family budgeting
is, at least initially, get a notebook and a pen and write things down as opposed to going
to high-tech, spending money to get it done etc. Avoid this being or becoming just
another unexpected and unplanned expense! It is supposed to help you, not hurt you.
Tools are great, but process and results are better.

 Family budgeting help you focus on the different types of expense you and your family
and household face. The annual ones are the hardest, we tend to put them on the back

burner and they tend to be larger amounts too. Having them in your budget assist us not
forgetting there major expenses like school fees, judo or gym memberships, dance classes,
Christmas and birthday gifts, babysitting or nanny-salaries and more.

 Fiscal restraint, wise decisions, weighing options, informed choice, planned set and
formulated goals and projection estimates and steps to get there, all work together in the
family budget, to get you back on track and on the road to enjoying your dollar-earnings.

 Initially, when setting up your family budget probably for the first time, it is acceptable
when estimating some of the expenditures and cost to err on the higher side. This will
definitely show you where you would need to cut back if you had to add in budget line
items or budget for big purchases like appliances, furnace replacement etc.

 Family budgets keep it real, in the moment and us humble, on our toes and accountable.

 Some realities we will have to live with. Some fixed costs we are not able to reduce right
away or at all. The fact of the matter is, we are on the look-out and actively finding other
and innovative ways to cut spending and costs that we would otherwise not have been

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