Is Your Family Budget in The Black?
I think January is a time of financial frustration for many families. A lot of us have all of those holday spending bills coming home to roost. In addition, it is time for many homeowners to cough up money for property taxes. With cold weather, heating bills may also be high. Oh, and Happy New Years to you too. 
Don’t Panic, Just Budget
I’d like to thanks some friends for posting a sample family budget worksheet. This shows a moderate income and moderate expenses, but that the income minus expense figure is negative. This means that credit card debt must be increasing, and that there is no money for savings. These are two very dangerous financial things for anybody.
You can also download a free family budget form for yourself. This way you can document your income, usual expenses, savings, and also some unusual expenses that may strain your finances. The article also explains some simple fixes to help keep your bank account positive.
Sometimes we are just not aware of how much money we spend on things we really do not need. In other cases, we may just be spending more than we have to for services we want and need. The article gives some great examples of comparison shopping we may want to do for fixed bills. It also gives us some tips to reduce our monthly spending without giving up on the quality of our lives.
Do You Need a Budget?
Consider these questions, and the answers may help you understand if you need to do more work on your finances.
- Do you ever use debit or credit cards and then realize you spent more than you think you did? It is so easy to use plastic without thinking, and then to run up bills.
- Have you done comparison shopping for fixed bills? Have you priced car insurance, phone service, etc. lately? You could be paying more than you should.
- Can you save some money for retirement and emergencies every month? If you do not have anything left to put aside, you really need to understand why.
Related posts:
