How to Create a Solid Budget

Member

By goodselfme
User-Submitted Article

Article Rating:

(26 Ratings)

Financial planning is the first step to budgeting

Financial planning is a good beginning to creating solid household budgets. My successful tips will guide you toward solid money ideas for managing your home expenses.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Step 1

Plan you budget finances on the computer.

Make a list of all monthly finances you have as income. This can be done on the computer or laptop or paper and a notebook. Once all the money that comes into the home, each month is listed, you have begun your solid budget plan. If there are temporary funds coming in like unemployment checks, state the end of that income money.
Step 2

Money management is important in budgeting

List all the expenses of the household.
1. Rent or mortgage expenses
2. Taxes
3. Health, auto, home and accident insurance policies.
4. Electric, gas, telephone, cable, water, sewer, garbage pick up, cell phone monthly charges and any others you think of too.
5. Estimated food expenses for a month
6. Gas usage each month or transportation costs
7. Donations to charity and church offerings
8. Entertainment
9. Gift giving for birthdays and special occasions.
10. Car or vehicle maintenance
11. Miscellaneous which will include unforeseen expenses.
Step 3

Rent or mortgage expenses are a large part of budget finances

Consider your rent being 1/4 to 1/3 of your monthly expenses for your solid budget plan. If your mortgage or rent exceeds that, think about supplementing your income with a part time job to supply more to the income to off set that financial expense.
Step 4

Look at your combined utilities to take 1/4 of your monthly money for an ideal budget. If there are ways to save on those, make adjustments. Some ideas might be to share garbage expenses with a neighbor, deleting phone services not being used, turning down heat to 50 degrees when not at home, using a drying rack for drying clothes instead of an automatic dryer and many other energy saving tips you think of too.
Step 5

Food consumption should include eating out, snacks bought outside the home, coffee stops and regular monthly groceries for the family. This financial expense should be 1/4 of the income money. If it needs adjusting, think of ways to limit outside buying of all items. Eating, drinking and snacking outside the home is costly.
Step 6

Make adjustments so your money spreads out for the monthly budget expenses. Working on balancing your household expenses to maintain a solid working plan will give you peace of mind and good structure for every month with little stress.