How To Create & Keep A Family Budget

Yesterday on KC Live, I discussed ways to keep or start a New Year’s Budget.

I believe in making things easy, so here is the four-step process the Snyder family used (and has been using) for the last few years.

1. Make A Goal. Having a budget is hard enough. Having no goals to go with your budget is setting yourself up for disaster. Spend some time and make a one-year, three-year and five-year goal. Sometimes only having one or two goals makes staying on track easier. (I’ve also written about our Family Budget Goals before.)

2. Track Spending. Now comes the hard part…where does your money go? Take a month and track every dime that you spend. And make it easier on yourself and invest in the Neat Receipts Scanner. I realize this is an investment, but if you have a tool that makes it easier to track your money, it will more than make up for its cost in the long run.

3. Set a Budget. There are tons of different family budgets and tons of different resources for creating them. My advice…spend some time in a bookstore and read a few different books and see what appeals to you. In our family, we are HUGE Dave Ramsey fans. In fact, I have no problem saying that Total Money Makeover and Financial Peace Junior changed our life.

4. Find Ways to Cut Costs. Now is the hard part, because most likely your income minus your spending is not lining up with your goals. So that means you need to cut back on some of your spending. There are tons of ways to cut back on spending without feeling deprived. Easy things like have different insurance companies bid for your business each year, ditch cable, use coupons, make a meal plan, etc.

I know it is hard work, but I also know that having breathing room in your financial life helps you have a better relationship with your spouse, your kids and God. And that kind of hard work…I’ll take any day.

Here is the segment if you missed it…