Modern Savings | Establishing a Monthly Budget

Modern Family's Budgeting

I have heard from a number of people about providing some simple ideas for managing your household budget. Couponing while it will save you money on your grocery bills, your health and beauty spending, it is only a part of a larger budget that is your Household Budget.

There are a few things to start out with and are fixed expenses:

• Mortgage/Rent
• Insurance (Home/Auto)
• Car Payment
• Utilities (water/power/gas/trash)
• Media (phone/Internet/cable)

Start your budgeting this month by keeping all these bills together. Write down each one on a piece of paper to see the expenses that basically allow you to live.

Next, add up all your income. Once you have this all added up, it is time to figure out what you have left over for the month to deal with other expenses. In a few days, I will post a bit more on how to manage
the disposable portion (savings vs. spending).

Now that you have all of this, go learn how to use a spreadsheet on your computer. This helps tremendously to establish your budget and track it. If you like, you can download the Modern Family Monthly Budget Template for free.

The elements above for the most part are fixed, but there are several things you can investigate to bring down those expenses.

• When it comes to auto insurance call your Insurance Agent and ask about the different rates at different deductibles. A $500 deductible will decrease your monthly auto insurance payment.
• Utilities are one of my favorites for saving monthly.
• Water – Watch your usage. If you are like us and have a bunch of kiddos bathing, make sure they are not taking 45 minute showers. Watch watering your lawn. In our town, if you water your lawn, you still pay the sewer cost and it is expensive.
• Power & Gas – Here is another savings area where many things can be done to decrease your power and gas consumption. Turn off the lights! Always! Set your Air Conditioning or Heating to a setting that prevents it from running all the time. Caulk your windows and doors. You would be amazed how much this saves in heating and cooling.
• Media is one of the most expensive areas and savings are available.
• Phone – If you have a cell phone and a land line phone. Choose one and shut the other down. If you only have a cell phone, consider your minutes and texting usage. Review your usage on your providers site. You can see where you are perhaps on a more expensive plan that you cannot take full advantage of based on your usage. A good measure to look at is your roll-over minutes, if you have 10,000 minutes, consider a temporary switch to a lower plan until the minutes are run out. You might save yourself a few bucks for a couple months. You can always switch back.
• Internet – Internet connection is becoming a mandatory expense. Consider taking full advantage of it. Also consider a Netflix account and a Roku box as an alternative to cable. This is basically movies streamed over the Internet to your TV.
• Cable – We have it, but we have switched so many times to take advantage of promotions. As cable companies continue to expand into new markets, competition will benefit your expense here.