As many families today are faced with shrinking income due to job loss or pay cuts a solid budget isn’t just a good idea but a must have to survive. A good budget consist of more than just the rent and utilities, yet most sites you search will offer you a standard template to use but these templates aren’t realistic in structure. A real budget has to include the expenses your family has on a monthly bases. Setting up a budget list does take a little time but in the end you have budget that meets your family’s needs.
When setting up my families budget list I started with the basic expenses we all have, such as, rent/mortgage, automobile payments, insurance, cable, cell phone, food, utilities, and entertainment. Yet I found I was spending more than I had planned out in my budget because I had underestimated what the real needs for my family were. But in order to know what those needs are you have to look at what your family spends money on first and what the budget buster consist of.
The largest budget breaker is the food budget. Most people have no idea how much they truly spend in food for their families each month. The reason most families bust the food budget comes from the spending done outside the weekly grocery list. The $1.50 breakfast bar you grab at the gas station or that $1.00 you spend every day at vending machine for drinks hidden culprits. When added all up the math does not lie, that $1.50 X 20 day’s equals $30.00 you hadn’t budgeted for. Keep in mind that’s just one person, what if both of you work and spending that $1.50 a day? There’s $60.00 you didn’t add to that monthly food budget.
The first step to understanding the food budget is to keep a daily log of every penny, and I do mean “every penny”, you spend each day. All those trips to the vending machine, gas station stops, and fast food flybys add up. By simply taking a note pad and tracking every purchase daily for one month you can see where and how you spend your money. When I did this I discovered I had spent from $80.00 to $90.00 dollars a month at the vending machine! That’s a lot of money! And that was just me.
When I looked at the reasoning behind my vending machine spending most of it was in bottled waters. I packed my lunch everyday thinking I was saving money but I wasn’t considering how much I was going to need in drinks during the work day. This discovery was a real eye opener for me that lead me to sit down and example that monthly budget I made up. All those little purchases add up to money I hadn’t factored into my families monthly food needs.
If you want a realistic budget, start with a daily purchase log. Write it all down from the bill/bills that were paid to that bottle of water from the vending machine. After one month examine your log you’ve kept, you might find you are over spending in an area you hadn’t considered. This knowledge will help you either reduce that expense or eliminate all together. (I now bring extra water every day. $4.99 for a case of water from the grocery store for two weeks is cheaper then hitting the vending machine twice a day.) Now when I look at my budget I know the true amount of money I need to factor in, in order to feed my family. In reality I spend roughly a third more than I original estimated I spent in food each month. This amount includes school lunches, eating out, and forgotten groceries items. But the most important thing I learned is where I save money.
