I been having a really hard time budgeting lately and its really stressing me out. My husband has a good paying job he brings home about ,200 a month and I make ,000 a month off of babysitting im a SAHM and I also get 0 a month of child support for my oldest daughter. All together we make ,650 a month which is pretty good money I think. We have a family of 5 so groceries are about 150 a week not including personal hygiene items. Our bills are mortgage 1200 month, truck 500 month then electric, water, cable, cell phone, credit cards, life insurance, hospital bills and we spend about 100 a week every Friday for our date night that we always do for each other. How can I budget my self and start a savings? we do not have any money in savings and I know we should. Our kids are also in gymnastics, dance and sports that also cost us money. Is there anyone I can see to help me get my finances in order or any tips anyone might have. Please I need helpful comments nothing insulting as for I am trying to get our finances in good standing. I hate being over drawn and living paycheck to paycheck. Thank you in advance for your help and time.
Chosen Answer:
You need to budget yourself. Here is the approach you can use:
1. Total up how much money you actually take home after tax.
2. List all the expense you have in the month.
3. Identify which one is a basic need, which one is luxury. Basic need are must have or else can’t survive, luxury is stuff that the poor people don’t get to have. This is important because wrongly identify will cost you money.
4. Then review once more time for alternative way to cut down basic need further, food, electricity, rent etc.
5. Review and cut all luxury off completely. Then you will have the total maximum amount you can save if you just live like a poor family. This figure is important because it is a maximum you can save.
6. Then to balance your life by adding back some amount of the basic need or luxury so that you don’t live in extreme poverty while saving a ton of money. You can also adjust month to month and know exactly where to scale back to meet your goal and a balance life.
In short, strip down all expense to live on poverty to determine the maximum you can save with your income, then use that saving to add back what important to you and still meeting your saving goal. For example, if you live on basic need the max you save is 4500, then you want to save 2000 a month for emergency, so you can use the remaining 2500 and start adding back to your expense to make your life more comfortable starting with the most important thing first.
by: Minh
on: 3rd October 13
