Proper family budget planning. How to properly plan a family budget

Today we have to figure out how to spend money correctly. This topic interests citizens of all countries. And all the time. After all, money is a means of subsistence. And they must provide citizens as much as possible. Not everyone knows how to manage them correctly. And even more so how to postpone it. When you have your own family and children, issues related to finances become seriously aggravated. To prevent this from happening, you just need to know how to spend money. How to learn this? What will help you save and drive family budget? Top tips and recommendations will be presented below. All of the above is not a panacea, but it will help you avoid wasting money. In some cases, this will allow you to spend less and save more, without compromising yourself on your purchases.

Family budget - an eternal dispute

Managing a family budget is a real art that not everyone can master. But it is recommended for every person to master it, or at least try to do it. At correct problem not scary. They simply won't exist. Except in cases where wages are delayed. And then the scale of the problems will be minimal.

Very good way saving and creating savings. Many, as already mentioned, are recommended to open a bank account and transfer money there. This will help you not to touch the funds and preserve them. In any case, it must be difficult to access. Only in emergency situations is it allowed to spend these savings.

Plan and facts

How to spend money in a family? For those who have already mastered the previously listed methods, you can slightly expand the table of income and expenses. And add to it such components as “plan” and “in fact”.

In the first column, you must indicate in advance what expenses are planned and for what amount. The second contains information about real expenses. Enough interesting way planning "free money". It is recommended to reduce the “actual” column monthly. Exactly the same as the "plan" section. Of course, taking into account the fact that a decrease in these indicators does not harm the life and well-being of the family.

"No" to loans

How to spend less money? Some people believe that loans are a good way to save money. In fact, most citizens who have learned to live within their means and also save well say the opposite.

Taking out loans when planning a budget is not recommended. But there is no need to exclude them from the pivot table if they exist. Lack of loans is a positive prospect. If a person has no debts, then the previously paid amount can be put aside for a rainy day.

Personal needs

How to spend money correctly? Some people don't understand this. If we are talking about one person, then there are no special problems with budget planning. But as soon as a family appears, as already mentioned, certain difficulties arise.

The point is that everyone has personal needs. What every person wants for himself personally. While learning to plan and maintain home accounting, you need to put your desires into the background.

By the way, it is recommended to distribute all “free” money at the end of the month among family members for personal needs. Or enter separate columns in the expense and income accounting table for this purpose. Allocate a fixed amount of money to everyone for their wishes.

Example

This is how to properly manage a family budget. The table example below is not the most advanced method. Rather, it is suitable for beginners. Through it, you can easily learn how to distribute finances so as not to fall into a financial hole.

An approximate table of expenses and income looks like this.

This, as already mentioned, is far from the most common option for cost accounting. But it helps at first. In general, planning a home budget is a crucial moment. And it is recommended to entrust this activity to those who are best at it. With a little patience and strength, you can easily learn how to distribute money and save well.

Types of family budget - planning

When planning a budget, you need to take into account the type of budget that is specific to your family. Decide what kind of it you will have: separate, common or mixed . Discuss the priorities of each spouse (education, investments, loans, creating your own business) and only after that start planning the family budget.

Separated

A separate family budget has gained particular popularity abroad, but in our country, many families practice a similar method of distributing financial resources. A separate budget is usually preferred by wealthy and successful people When a certain amount is allocated for housekeeping, each spouse spends the remaining money on personal needs.

Advantages:

• you can save a significant amount in your personal account;
• fewer reasons for quarrels in the family;
• absence of family litigation in case of divorce.

Flaws:

• if you have children, then a separate family budget will not work: it’s strange for your son to chip in for sneakers or a car;
• for people who imagine family life as a joint activity, such relationships are also not suitable - it will be difficult for them to understand how they can have something separate from the common interests of the family;
• transform family relationships In exclusively business situations it is impossible.

Mixed

A mixed type of family budget involves allocating, for example, 80% of the wife and husband’s salary for housekeeping, and everyone spends the rest on themselves. If the spouses managed to save up for an expensive item or unforeseen circumstances arose, then the rules change. You can take money from the general cash register when you need it.

Advantages:

• an honest approach to those who have less income;
• Each spouse has personal funds, and there is no need to ask for money;
• such an approach to money indicates that the relationship between the spouses is well-established and mature.

Flaws:

• maintaining a mixed family budget is not suitable if only one of the spouses works;
• neither the husband nor the wife has the desire to take responsibility for the common money;
• one of the spouses is silent about part of the income.

General

The most common type is the general one, in which both spouses bring all the money they receive into the family, and then decide where to spend it.

Advantages:

• talking about relationships of trust between husband and wife;
• a spouse who does not work or receives a lower salary does not feel inferior;
• you can make large purchases, since two salaries are usually a significant amount.

Flaws:

• not suitable for families where one of the spouses may deny themselves everything in order to buy a TV, while the other may, without hesitation, buy something for themselves;
• the husband or wife does not tolerate the lack of personal money;
• Not recommended similar type budget for families where one of the spouses is pathologically greedy or leads an ascetic lifestyle and is of little interest to the needs and desires of the second spouse.

What to consider when planning a family budget

When starting to draw up a family budget for the month, analyze your income and expenses for the previous months. To do this, you need to start keeping track of funds in advance. Having such data on hand, planning your expenses will not cause any difficulties.

Basic components of the family budget:

• income of husband and wife (salary, social benefits, pension, part-time work);
• expenses (mandatory, for children, family, personal);
• reserve fund (“financial safety net”);
• investments.

Income

Income for the total family budget includes the wages of the wife and husband. If earnings are unstable, then it is reasonable to set aside some of the money, forming a “safety cushion” in case of a small influx of money. In the month where a large amount comes into the family budget, set aside 20% or more, if possible.

Expenses

When calculating expenses, take into account income; they must correspond to each other. If you break this rule, debts will inevitably appear.

Tips on how to reduce consumables:

1. Buy less. This will save not only money, but also time. If you buy less food, the amount of expired food you throw away will be reduced, and sometimes there will be nothing to throw away. A pre-compiled shopping list will help protect you from spontaneous purchases.

Ignore the advice of psychologists to go shopping to lift your mood, as well as advertising. The mood will always be good, if you have money in your wallet, unplanned shopping will only contribute to a momentary and short-term increase in mood. Changing habits will be difficult at first, but over time everything will return to normal.

1. Buy cheaper. Usually things and food purchased under the influence of advertising are expensive. For example, buying an expensive mobile phone, only because it was well advertised and is considered a prestigious thing. Sometimes the own products produced by large supermarkets are in no way inferior to other more advertised brands. Control your desires, look for more financially profitable options, learn to bargain.
2. Analyze. By carefully recording your expenses and analyzing them, you can find out where most of your money is going. When making purchases, you will not notice many nuances; they will emerge only when analyzing the purchases made. This technique will allow you to control costs.
3. Avoid unnecessary expenses. For example, when cooking, take care of your clothes; you can change your everyday clothes to home ones or put on an apron. Taking care of your shoes will extend the life of your shoes: use creams, sprays, varnishes, and promptly clean them from dirt.
4. Use cash. Psychologically, it is easier to part with non-cash money than to count out cash.

Own housing

If you don’t have your own house or apartment, then it’s worth including in the family budget the column “saving money for your own housing.” Living with parents creates conditions for additional conflicts and does not allow building family life on your own, so it’s not entirely convenient.

Reserve part or “financial safety cushion”

This part of the family budget includes finances that may be useful in case of unforeseen circumstances. There must be a reserve of funds that will allow the family to survive for several months if one of the spouses loses their job. To purchase or repair broken household appliances (for example, washing machine) the reserve fund is also used.

Investments

This is part of the family budget that will generate passive income. This is a bank deposit, real estate, shares.

The wisest thing is to get rid of debts and loans as quickly as possible, since they negatively affect psychological condition. Try to accumulate investments in order to receive passive income in the future; the family budget will greatly benefit from this.

Methods of maintaining a family budget

One of the simple ones, but very effective methods maintaining a family budget - divide it into three main parts:

• 50% of income is spent on paying for utilities, housing, food;
• 30% is spent on entertainment and other unnecessary expenses;
• 20% goes to pay off loans and debts or is put aside as savings.

One of the variants of this technique involves spending 20% ​​of income on creating a financial “safety cushion” and paying off debts, and 80% on other needs. There are other methods for maintaining a family budget, the most popular are “Accurate Cost Management” and “Four Envelopes”.

Accurate cost management

Maintaining a family budget using this technique involves carefully recording every penny spent. It will require effort and time, which will more than pay off in significant financial savings (up to 20% of income). Few people are able to record every purchase, including food, but you will have to do this daily, for which it is better to use an Excel spreadsheet.

Create a table in Excel where you divide your expenses into 5 columns. First, write down utility bills (electricity, internet, rent). In the second - buying food, in the third - paying for personal needs, in the fourth - spending on entertainment, in the fifth - unforeseen expenses. In the evening, enter the amount spent in each of the columns (if there were any expenses) and at the end of the month you will see the real expenses. This will allow you to approach the distribution of money more thoughtfully.

You can add other columns, adapting the table for yourself, for example, household chemicals, caring for pets, children, parents. The main thing is not to forget to record every little detail and you will understand how to distribute the family budget more wisely.

The most popular family budgeting spreadsheet.

The technique is suitable for those who are not able to record every penny spent. As soon as you receive your salary, immediately set aside 20% - this will be savings. Pay the utilities, and divide the remaining money into 4 equal parts and put them in envelopes. Each of these will make up your weekly budget. If the week is over and there is money left in the envelope, you can spend it on yourself or put it into savings.

This technique is good because it does not require painstaking cost accounting. As soon as you start spending money thoughtfully, the desire for spontaneous acquisitions will disappear.

A table of family budget expenses cannot be compiled at once. You will need to thoroughly find out where the money is being spent. This will take 1-2 months. The best option- make a table in MSExcel, this will allow you to enter detailed explanations for each document, since the program includes several interconnected tables.

How to create a family budget in Excel

With a general family budget, the income and expenses of the family budget are scrupulously entered into the table every day, and first you need to fill out the “income” columns. Then mandatory expenses are planned:

• debt recovery;
• creation of reserves (savings);
• formation of family capital.

The next step is planning current expenses:

• general (for children, variable, permanent);
• personal expenses of husband and wife.

Here you can add a column for “unforeseen expenses”, which can be no more than 10% of the income.

Expenses in the family budget are very diverse and to complete the picture, it is advisable to describe them in as much detail as possible. First, write down your expenses and then divide them into subtypes. Usually they are repeated monthly, so you will only need to change the numbers; you will not have to re-enter the table header. Set the “Total” and “Deviations” columns to automatically calculate the amount.

Separate budget

In this case, divide the family budget table into two tables: the personal budget of each spouse, where you indicate the income of each spouse separately. The general part should include expenses for family needs, child support and personal expenses.

Mixed type of family budget

First, create personal expenses separately for each spouse. This can be a percentage of the total family income or the husband and wife's own income. Distribute the rest for your family's needs.

Services and programs for convenient planning and maintaining a family budget

• There are programs for home accounting, for example, AlzexPersonalFinance, which is based on the division into categories of income and expenses. This makes it possible to see where the money was spent without studying and analyzing reports. The program can be downloaded to a USB flash drive, installed on any external drive and always have the version for your tablet or mobile phone with you.

There are two versions of AlzexPersonalFinance:

1. Personal- intended for one user, additional options may not be available.
2. a commercial- designed for one user, with access to all program options (restricted access rights, user accounts, events, counterparties, tasks).

AlzexPersonalFinance has ample opportunities and unlimited nesting of a tree-like system of categories, there is a large number of labels for each transaction. Credits and debts are kept track of, financial goals are tracked and expenses are controlled. Reports can be presented graphically and printed. It is possible to organize transactions by day in the calendar.

• AlzexPersonalFinance program

By using this program, you will not only understand how to manage a family budget, but you will also do it as wisely as possible.

Another program for managing a family budget is called “Housekeeper”, developed by AmoSoft. The program will make your financial situation stable and control your spending. Distinctive features are a simple, intuitive interface; “Housekeeper” can be used even by people who are far from accounting and computers.

Spend a few minutes daily entering data and at the end of the month you will see the most complete picture of the state of your family’s finances. Reports are provided in graphical form, which allows you to clearly see the strengths and weaknesses of the family budget.

The program will tell you how to save your family budget, preventing thoughtless spending.

• "Home Finance"- the program combines flexibility and reliability in organizing the movement of family money.

The interface is well thought out and simple, intuitive even for not very experienced users. The program will allow you to detect weaknesses in the family or personal budget, as well as organize the optimal flow of financial resources.

• "Home accounting".

The program is easy to use, and you will find all the necessary functions in it:

1. profit and loss accounting;
2. payment planning;
3. debt accounting;
4. control of accounts;
5. exchange rates.

The only disadvantage of “Home Accounting” is that you will have to pay 500 rubles to use it.

• MoneyTracker

MoneyTracker is designed for accounting, it is convenient to use, but you will need to tinker and figure out what's what, since the program has a lot of functions. A distinctive feature of the program is the ability to control price changes in stores, which allows you to create a budget forecast for months or a year. There is a utility that shows how much you spend (a green indicator means everything is fine, a red one indicates that the family budget is in danger).

• "DomFin"

The DomFin program can be used for free, the interface is primitive: the functions for accounting are clearly and specifically set out. It is intuitive where to record expenses and where income should be recorded.

• AceMoney

To use the program you will have to pay 500 rubles. In the free version you can only use one account, which is inconvenient. The negative point is that in AceMoney there is only one operation: transaction; you will not find “income” and “expenses” sections.

Advantages of AceMoney:

• You can keep records of securities and shares;
• There are templates by which you can distribute expenses (utilities, food), you don’t have to do them yourself;
• you can monitor the status of your bank accounts (for example, at what percentage is the money at).

To choose the optimal program specifically for your own needs, you need to clearly understand the goal you want to achieve. Also, the program should be selected taking into account the characteristics of a specific family budget. For some, certain features are completely useless and will never be needed.

1. Don't forget the reason why you decided to start planning your family budget. This is not because it is necessary or someone said so, but in order, for example, to reduce expenses.
2. Clearly define for yourself the ultimate goal of your actions. For example, by the end of the year, save up for a car.
3. Accounting for income and expenses must be very accurate and thorough.
4. Think about ways to form a “financial safety net” for your family.
5. Set aside money in bank deposit accounts without the possibility of withdrawal until the end of the period. There are deposits that can be replenished, but cannot be withdrawn until a certain date.
6. Look at your own actions realistically: you cannot become an ace in managing the family budget in one month, start small.
7. Don't be afraid to radically change something in the family budget. Things are always changing in life, including your salary and expenses.
8. Divide one big dream into several small steps, this will make the path to achieving your goal easier.

Useful articles:

Updated: 10/23/2018 Oleg Lazhechnikov

130

I often come across the fact that people don’t know where they spend their money, they don’t know how much they spend on food, on gatherings in a cafe with friends, on clothes, on unexpected expenses, and so on. At the same time, they borrow money, complain that there is not enough money, but they really want to go somewhere, or buy a laptop/bicycle... The question immediately arises, do you really want to? Or, what would you like more, spend money on beer on weekends, or go to the sea? Of course, at sea, but I spend so little on entertainment, there will be an answer. In reality, a person does not know that some of his expense items in total for several months or a year amount to a trip to the sea.

In no way am I advocating saving on what is important to you. But it’s better to know and understand how much money it actually takes from you, so that you can make an informed choice. No less important is knowing your real desires, your real dreams. I wrote about this in an article.

You have leverage over your family members :) For example, a wife comes to her husband and says, we don’t buy me anything, we don’t spoil me, but you bought yourself a MacBook for 50 thousand, ah-ah. Silently, the husband opens the budget, makes a selection for the year and shows that, in addition to the MacBook, he only bought a couple of T-shirts for himself during the year, while the wife has already bought 100 thousand worth of clothes for herself in the whole year, she just didn’t buy everything at once, but bought little by little , periodically.

pros

In general, a budget is a great thing for understanding how your expenses stack up. In reality, many people think that it’s only 1000 rubles more expensive, but in fact, these thousands of rubles for the whole year (and for some even in a month) add up so much that you can buy a car! A toy :) Actually, I’m not kidding, saving the family budget is the only way it comes together - from the little things, this is the main feature. Saved 1000 rubles = earned 1000 rubles. I recently calculated that my smoking friend spends about the cost of a good laptop on cigarettes per year. That is, if he didn’t smoke, he could change his laptop once a year.

I just ask you not to confuse economy with poverty. Trying to increase your earnings is a necessary and obligatory desire, and in no way contradicts saving. As in business, there is always an accountant who optimizes costs. And, if you go in two directions at the same time, earning money and consciously weeding out unnecessary expenses, you can reach your goal much faster.

I sincerely do not understand the situation when requests grow faster than income. What's the point of spending everything and getting into debt/loans, for what? Isn't it better to save or invest to gain financial independence and freedom? Otherwise, you can earn millions and still beg.

So, the advantages point by point.

• Control. You always know clearly what you are spending your money on. There are no questions about where half the salary went and who spent it.
• Conscious choice. After a couple of months of budgeting, you really know how much each expense item is, and you may well want to adjust it (reduce/increase). This way, unnecessary expenses are eliminated.
• No debts. Getting into debt/loans is minimized because you can calculate everything in advance and avoid it.
• Easier to plan your purchases. If you want to buy something big or go somewhere, it's much easier to plan with a budget. You will be able to find out in what month you will have a sufficient amount, which is very convenient, or how you need to change your spending structure in order for this amount to appear.
• Useful for long trips. You can always plan in advance how many months the money will last.
• Convenient for dismissal. You can find out how much time you have and calculate when it’s time to start looking for a job.
• Disciplines. Both in terms of spending and in terms of life in general.

I've been budgeting since 2008. I tried it once and liked it. Thanks to the budget, I was able to plan more than one trip, or rather understand the possibility of its implementation in a specific month under specific conditions. He also helped me a lot after I was fired in 2010.

Then I immediately calculated how many months of free life I could get, what countries I could go to and what things I could buy. Accordingly, I knew in what month the earnings would appear or when I needed to go to work (in case of failure).

In general, what I like most is the feeling of security/security when you can plan everything in advance (for 3-6-12 months) and be calm.

Minuses

There are (for me) much fewer of them.

• Tracking expenses and planning a family budget takes time. At the right approach quite a bit, but it takes. But sometimes it’s even nice to take it and write down a plan for the next six months and include useful purchases and long-awaited trips.
• There is a possibility of getting stuck on saving money and going beyond some acceptable limits. Or else, become a miser, starting to save on everything in general. It is worth understanding that everyone has their own boundaries, that for one it is saving, for another it is squandering.
• Addition to the previous paragraph. There is a chance of getting stuck on your current income level and focusing only on saving. Or in other words, “not allow” oneself to have more money, a kind of psychological barrier can be obtained.

How to manage a family budget

As I wrote above, the basic principles (well, or advantages) are spending control, conscious choice and eliminating unnecessary expenses. And a budget is based on this: you plan expenses for the required period of time and then stick to them. Also, during the process you need to note these expenses in order to correlate actual expenses with planned ones.

How strictly to do all this is up to everyone to decide for themselves. At first I kept everything very strictly in order to understand where and what was going, and then I relaxed, began to round off and keep everything approximately. The result is a floating budget, in which the main thing is the absence of unnecessary expenses, matching expenses with income (needs and capabilities), and not strict compliance and saving for the sake of saving.

• There are income items and expense items. The number of articles here and there can be absolutely any, the main thing is that it is convenient for you. I started with a lot of detail, and then I simplified everything and combined many of the articles. If you don’t know where to start, then start with any items; usually, after a couple of months, budgeting becomes more and more clear. Although I still adjust sometimes.
• In my opinion, income and expense items should be written such as those that you will later analyze, or for which you need to track the dynamics. If this is not important to you, then in general you can make one expense item and one income item. In general, you can put your entire budget into a paper envelope, that is, put the amount you are going to spend into it at the beginning of the month, and then see if there is anything left or not.
• I write down my expenses every day, it's more convenient, and it only takes a couple of minutes. But basically the app on my phone does everything for me, recognizes SMS messages and records them in the database. And when you need to plan something serious, for example, wintering in Thailand, then you can sit for half an hour.
• Both husband and wife can manage a budget, either together or alone. As you agree, in general. Or more precisely, who will like it more. True, when they lead together (both expenses are noted and planned), it will be easier to discuss something than if someone distances themselves from it.
• I won’t say whether it’s worth maintaining a joint or separate budget. Eat different opinions on this score. I personally accept both options. When both of a couple are self-sufficient and earn money, then, firstly, everyone is calmer and more confident in their tomorrow, and secondly, he will only be happy with a separate budget.
• You can budget without planning at all. That is, simply mark income/expenses and check if everything is in order (control). Some apps and online planning services do not.
• The essence of spending control is to ensure that you have a positive balance (reserve), that is, a positive difference between income and expenses. Maybe not every month, but every quarter or year. Well, so that the trend can be seen, whether you live in a minus or in a plus. This reserve can be accumulated or spent on something useful.
• Typically, all smart books advise putting 5-10% of your income into a financial buffer or investing, regardless of your goals. 5-10% is, indeed, an amount that is practically unnoticeable for any income. I don't have that kind of strictness. Sometimes I go into the buffer (I go into minus), sometimes I put aside 50%.

Programs for maintaining a family budget

How to choose a program

Some services have their own website service and mobile app, partly just an app, partly just a website. In my opinion, the more convenient option is when you can use both the application on your phone and the online version on the website from your laptop. This was one of the reasons why I chose Drebedengi at one time and have been using them for many years.

You can also do it the old fashioned way - write it down on a piece of paper. However, there is a risk that this piece of paper will be lost at one point, and it is much easier to correct something in the electronic budget.

How did I choose a program for maintaining a family budget? I went to Google Play, downloaded about 5 Android applications that I liked based on the screenshots and descriptions, and started trying them. About 10 minutes for each application. As a result, there were two left that were more or less clear to me, or in other words, where I was satisfied with the logic of budgeting. It is important that my principle of management in my head coincided with the intention of the author of the application. Otherwise, you will have to spend a very long time delving into how to do what. No, everything should be intuitive. Next, I tried to track my expenses for a couple of days to understand whether it was convenient for me or not.

From 2008 to 2013, I kept a budget in Excel. You can download a simplified template of my budget. Or here’s my budget (a more complex file) taking into account different income/expense channels (cards, electronic money).

One sheet in Excel is one month. The budget is monthly and scheduled for 2-3 months in advance, no less. To plan six months in advance, you need to create 6 more sheets named “monthYear” (for the formula to work), and so on.

Each month has two columns - planned expenses and actual ones. The first column is for planning, the second for current expenses.

In my file (especially in the second one) there are formulas, if you are not comfortable with them, then it is better to try to do something of your own or use ready-made services. IN otherwise we'll have to figure it out. In short, in the second file you can mark expenses by day depending on how you spent them: cash, electronic money, cards. And the balance is then calculated in exactly the same way for all these places where funds are stored.

Drebendengi Service

Since 2013, I have transferred the budget to the site and am very pleased. Now I track all my expenses on my phone and plan them online on my laptop.

Many operations are automated, for example, all expenses on a bank card automatically fall into the budget. Thus, if you practically don’t use cash (and I’m trying to minimize it), then there’s almost no need to mark anything. Read a separate post and their phone application, because it’s too long to talk about.

So a simple table in Excel is good only for a start, for testing, so to speak. And after you have decided that there is a budget, you can switch to services, including paid ones.

P.S. Do you manage a family or personal budget?

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Surely every family in our country dreams of bringing some idea to life.

However, few people know that for this you need to control your costs so that you can try to reduce them when necessary. Moreover, there are even programs for this.

For this reason, let's talk about the distribution of the family budget in more detail.

How to make a table and distribute the budget in it

In control income and expenses families use the option with a table in Excel. This is very convenient, because by downloading this document you can easily see:

• monthly income families;
• expected(which will be spent, for example, on utilities) expenses and actual(these may be types of expenses that are not planned: for an event, urgent repairs, and so on);
• difference in income and expenses over the past month.

In simple terms, using this table you can adjust the difference and thereby not go into the minus.

In order not to create confusion with formulas for calculations, it is recommended to download a ready-made table (links below) and adjust it to suit your family budget.

It is necessary to take into account the fact that Excel provides the ability to create a table for family money control, so it is enough to download a ready-made template.

To create a table, you need:

1. Download Excel.
2. In the upper left corner, select “Create” from the menu.
3. After this, you should go to the “Budgets” subsection.
4. In this subcategory, select the “Family Budget” tab.

After selecting the last tab, the screen appears wide choose ready-made templates. Just choose the one that suits your family and download it.

After all the operations have been completed, as well as possibly filling in your data, you should get something like this table (again, it all depends on which one the family chooses):


You can also choose this:


By and large, all such tables for monitoring the family budget work according to the same algorithm.

At the beginning of each month, planned expenses are recorded, and at the end of the current month, actual expenses are entered.

As can be seen from the tables, there must be a column with a difference. It indicates the family as a “plus” or as a “minus”. By and large, the structure as in the pictures is present in all ready-made templates, so there are no problems with this.

Programs

Today, there are many paid and free programs that allow you to monitor family income and expenses.

Paid

Today there are several paid programs, which allow you to control the family budget, namely:

• AceMoney;
• Family

AceMoney

First of all, you need to pay attention to the fact that The cost of this program is about 500 rubles(free use option is allowed, but in the free version there is only 1 account, which is very inconvenient).

If we talk about the disadvantages of this program, then there is only one, but it is significant - there is no way to separate expenses and profit itself, and only one function is available - financial transactions.

If we talk about the advantages of this utility, they are as follows:

• it is possible to take into account various shares or other securities;
• there are separate columns for expenses such as payments for: television, food, utilities (for each service separately), etc.;
• It is possible to enter information about what deposits are available and at what interest rates. At the same time, the program calculates interest on these deposits on a monthly basis.

With this program you can easily understand how to properly manage your budget.

Family 10

This utility will make it clear from the first minutes of its use that it is committed to a mutually beneficial relationship. In simple words it includes a convenient and intuitive interface that any family member can easily understand.

The functionality of the program allows you to conduct accounting for almost everything that can be found in a family’s home.

Please note that there is no fee for the first month of use, but from the second month you will need to pay about 20 dollars.

Free

Free programs include:

• DomFin;
• Money Tracker.

DomFin

This utility includes a rather primitive interface that has specific functionality for excellent control over your family budget. Thanks to this interface, you can easily indicate current income and expenses, calculate the difference.

“DomFin” contains only those terms that will be understandable to every family member who even understands absolutely nothing about accounting. From the first days of use, the program is completely free.

Money Tracker

By and large, the program is fully thought out for the successful implementation of your funds. However, it is still worth getting used to it.

Many of our fellow citizens who use this program in home use, note that it contains many functions that can affect the efficient and quick accounting of your income and expenses.

Moreover, if you do not study the program in full, you may even think that many of the functions are useless.

However, it is necessary to note a small positive nuance in this program. This concerns the ability to indicate changes in prices in supermarkets, as well as forecast your budget several months in advance, or even, if desired, you can forecast it for the whole year.

The program provides several color alert options. If it lights up green color– the difference between expenses and income is acceptable, with yellow color– it’s worth thinking about reducing costs, but if it’s red, it’s urgent to reduce financial costs.

Example of a finished table in Excel

In order to better understand which table is needed for a particular family, it is recommended to look at samples of ready-made tables:

If desired, any of these tables can be used to monitor your family budget.

Having analyzed many reviews from our citizens on the Internet, we can highlight the main tips provided by these users for those who are just starting to control their family budget.

So, tips for managing a family budget look like this:

1. First of all, you should learn to understand the meaning of how to plan a budget, Why do you need to control your funds?. An example of this could be the desire to reduce the amount of monthly expenses by 10-15% in order to save up for renovations in the apartment or to achieve another goal. If you approach this matter because “everyone does it this way,” nothing will work out.
2. When creating a table with your personal budget do not overload it with small details. Only the main points need to be indicated in this table. In particular, you can indicate costs for: food, utilities, clothing, entertainment, and so on. You shouldn’t write that “I only bought sausage today - 400 rubles.” It is also always worth paying attention to time to enter data into the table– with prolonged attention, she will quickly get bored and then any desire to control expenses will disappear. You need to work with the table according to the principle: “Brevity is the sister of talent.”
3. Savings can only be made with any major purchases. As a rule, there is no need to try to save on small things - it is useless. For this advice there is no suitable folk wisdom, which reads - “After drinking on vodka, you can’t save money on buying matches” . This rule must always be remembered and then you can achieve certain successes. What does this mean? It’s simple - you need to analyze those columns where the percentage of waste is the highest, and try to reduce this percentage a little. We can say that by saving 10%, there is a 40% chance of making a profit.
4. If possible, then it would be best to open a bank account, which should serve as a savings account. All funds that were saved after the current month will need to be transferred to this account.
5. It is always necessary to remember that all the goals set, because of which, in fact, the family budget is controlled, must be achievable. In the first stages, you should pay attention to the fact that it will be very difficult, but only after the family is able to cope with this will it be possible to see firsthand the results of monitoring the family budget.
6. If a situation arises when it becomes clear that it is impossible to do without revising the family budget, or rather spending it, everything must be done to reduce your financial costs. Many families are afraid of changes in this and prefer to stay with this control. Or rather, give up control of your finances and live as before. However, to achieve your goals, you cannot do without revising your budget expenses.