How to manage a family budget - my personal experience, pros and cons. How to spend money correctly? Family budget: example. Home accounting

Often, families who earn less do not experience serious financial problems, unlike their seemingly more affluent neighbors. The whole secret lies in how to correctly distribute the family budget for the month. The income and expenses table is an accurate tool and cannot be fooled. In this article we will focus on the basic rules for forming a common family wallet.

Income items

When determining the sources of filling the home treasury, it is important to take into account all the items of income that are available:

  • husband's salary;
  • wife's salary;
  • social payments and benefits;
  • pensions;
  • interest on bank deposits;
  • permanent or one-time part-time jobs;
  • gifts and outside help;
  • income from what is grown in a country house or garden.

It is enough to simply take into account the main income if the level wages stable. Otherwise, it would be most correct to write average over the past few months. If you are not sure that next month you will be able to earn extra money, then such income should not be included in the estimate, since expenses are calculated according to the level of income, and the lost profit will make a hole in the overall financial plan.

As a rule, there are two main sources of income (salaries of family members), all others are additional, from which a reserve can be formed.

Expense items

Everything is much more complicated here. The family faces a challenge: proper distribution family budget so that funds from two main sources of income can be rationally redistributed to four main cost items:

  • general family expenses;
  • expenses for children;
  • wife's spending;
  • husband's spending.

As a rule, on the day they receive wages, people allow themselves to spend significantly more than on other days. One gets the impression of a kind of euphoria that you have endured until payday, which means you can pamper yourself and your children. These days there are especially many trips to cafes, entertainment centers, cinemas; toys and items for hobbies and interests are purchased. Thus, at the very beginning, a “time bomb” is laid under the monthly financial plan, which will “explode” closer to the end of the month.

Practicing psychologists advise not to purchase anything at all on payday. You need to bring the money home, put it in a “common pot”, and the next day go to the supermarket with a specific list of what you need.

Formation of a monthly cost plan

The spending plan is always much broader than a profitable item and is drawn up in several stages. Their sequence must be followed so as not to violate the logic of budget formation.

First stage. Investment or savings

A certain percentage of what you earn is immediately separated and put aside for a predetermined amount. common goal. Personal finance management experts say in this regard: “pay yourself first, and then everyone else.” Depending on the level of prosperity, this percentage may vary. Minimum level should not be less than 5%, the maximum rarely exceeds 20%. The most common option is 10%. It is also possible to save a certain amount each month, but it does not work well with an unstable level of earnings.

It is strictly forbidden to keep savings at home. Regularly arising needs will push you to use what you have accumulated.

Practice shows that what is usually taken from the “little box” is never returned there. This can be avoided by placing funds in a bank deposit. There are deposits under the terms of which you can regularly replenish the deposit, but you cannot withdraw money from the account until a certain period. Not even the tallest bank interest will protect savings from inflationary processes and increase the total amount.

Second phase. Mandatory (permanent) payments

After separating savings funds, you should think about payments that cannot be avoided. This is not a new dress for the wife or a modern spinning rod, but things are much more down-to-earth.

  • First, money borrowed from friends or payments on bank loans are given. If possible, it is better to repay these loans at an accelerated pace to avoid unnecessary interest payments.
  • Then the funds needed to pay for the use of the Internet, telephone and housing are calculated. public utilities(rent, water, electricity, gas).
  • Subtracted after necessary costs on public transport, payment for kindergarten, meals at school, education of children (music or sports school, university). If one of your relatives has a chronic illness that requires regular intake certain medications, they also belong to this section. You can also include gasoline for a car here, if it is necessary for running a business, otherwise this item will go into unnecessary expenses.

Third stage. Variable costs

This includes all other family expenses. They must meet the amount that remains after savings and mandatory payments. Therefore, they should be entered into the table according to the degree of importance for each specific family. Typically the order is:

Food. What is meant here is not everything that can be eaten, but what the family needs to create a complete diet. When first writing financial plan This article usually takes quite a long time. However, after just six months, many thrifty families have developed such a clear algorithm for purchasing products that they can safely transfer the purchase of products into regular payments.

Shoes and clothing. It is not purchased regularly, but is quite expensive when it comes to truly high-quality goods. It is better to plan such costs in the off-season, i.e. It is better to buy a winter jacket in July, and sneakers in January. A periodic wardrobe audit helps prevent unnecessary purchases. At the same time, you may find practically unused dresses and shirts on which money has already been spent.

Household expenses. Doesn't take up a lot of money the right approach to the point (purchase of concentrates or bulk packages of household chemicals), however, at least once a quarter the amount should be increased for one-time purchases (for example, replacing curtains or a faucet in the bathroom). This also includes the cost of gasoline for a car used for personal purposes.

Personal expenses of spouses. Cosmetics, perfumes, shaving machines, cigarettes, a bottle of wine, a fishing rod and reel, payment for fitness classes and a beauty salon - everything is here, but within the limits of available cash.

Entertainment, holidays, birthdays, vacations- there will be little left for this, but later the amount can be increased by saving on other items.

Unexpected expenses. It’s better to leave a couple of hundred “just in case.” There are different cases: illness, an unexpected invitation to a colleague’s anniversary, the arrival of a mother-in-law. Then this “nest egg” will help you avoid debt.

To ensure that all the advice is not unfounded, we will give one of the options on how to correctly distribute the family budget. The table for the month in this example is filled out on a weekly basis, which is very convenient if there are several sources of filling the general treasury.

No. Article title According to plan In fact Difference
1-8 8-15 15-22 22-29 29-31
1 Income
2 Saving 20% of income
3 Rent
Utilities
Telephone
Education
Kindergarten
Transport
Loan repayment
4 Nutrition
Farm
Doctors and medicine
Automobile
5 Cloth
Holidays
Birthdays
Vacation
Other entertainment
Unforeseen 5% of income
6 Total

A financial plan will help you not to be left without money at the most crucial moment.

The main task when drawing up a personal budget is not just to balance debits with credits, but to wisely distribute expenses so that in the last week before payday you don’t have to borrow or live from hand to mouth.

You can plan your budget in special or any tables - the principle is the same.

As a rule, the main part of the salary is paid not on the first day of the month, but on the 5th, 10th or 15th. Therefore, it will be more convenient to plan a budget not for a calendar month, but for the period from paycheck to paycheck, for example, from March 10 to April 9.

Income

First, you need to record all financial receipts in order to understand how much you have. All sources of income should be taken into account: salary, bonus, part-time work, money from renting out an apartment, and so on. If your income is unstable, it makes sense to form a budget when you know exactly how much you have, for example, on the day the money is received on the card.

Expenses

The items of expenditure that cannot be avoided should be entered first. This list will look something like this:

  1. Groceries (including lunches at work if you eat in the canteen).
  2. Communal payments.
  3. Directions
  4. Mobile connection.
  5. Internet.
  6. Household chemicals.

Naturally, the list of mandatory payments will be different for each person and each family. Tolls may be replaced by gasoline costs. People with chronic diseases will take into account the costs of medicines. The same list will include loan payments, payment for kindergarten and so on. At the same time, the traditional trip to the cinema on Saturdays and similar expense items are not mandatory.

Make it a rule to put money into a “stabilization fund” every month. This can be a fixed amount or a percentage of income.

The amount remaining after deducting mandatory expenses can be dealt with in two ways:

  1. You allocate money for entertainment, clothing and various amenities.
  2. You divide the remaining amount by the number of days in the month.

With the first method, everything is clear: you determine that you will spend 3,000 rubles on cinema, the same amount on clothes, and so on. The second method is worth considering in more detail.

Let's say you have 15,500 rubles left, and there are 31 days in the month. This means that you can spend 500 rubles daily. At the same time, mandatory expenses are already taken into account in the budget, so this money is intended only for pleasant expenses or force majeure circumstances. Accordingly, if you spend more than this amount per day, then you will go into the red, and at the end of the month you will have to tighten your belt. If you don’t spend anything, then within two weeks you’ll save up 7,000 rubles, which you can spend on something big.

The money remaining at the end of the financial period can be spent or put aside. The first way is pleasant, the second is rational.

How to plan a budget for the year

The annual financial plan will need regular adjustments both in terms of expenses and income, so all columns in it need to be created in duplicate: a forecast and an actual indicator.

Income

If you have a regular income

With a fixed amount of earnings, you simply enter salary and other stable income into the income section. The only thing that will interrupt the usual course of things is vacation pay. Usually, before a vacation, they give you money for the days during which you will rest, but then you will miss a certain amount in your salary. But in general, at the forecasting stage, especially if you are drawing up a budget for the first time, it will be enough to use only the salary amount for all months.

If you have inconsistent income

If income is irregular, there are three ways to forecast income:

1. You are sure that you will receive a monthly amount sufficient to live on, although you do not know its exact amount.

Calculate your average income and use it for calculations. If you earn more than the predicted amount in any month, move the excess to the piggy bank. You will get into it if you earn less than average.

2. You don’t have a regular income and you’re not sure what you will have.

It is better to take the minimum income as a basis for calculations. In this case, budget planning will become a task with an asterisk, but there will be no financial surprises.

3. Some of your income is stable, but Exact size earnings are difficult to predict.

For example, you receive a fixed salary, and the availability of a bonus depends on many factors. Then it’s worth planning your budget so that a stable income covers all your primary needs, and you’ll spend on the rest depending on the situation.

Don't forget to take into account the income you receive irregularly: quarterly bonus(every three months), return tax deduction(once a year) and so on.

For example, let's take a situation where the majority of income is stable - this is salary. The minimum premium is 3,000 rubles, and we will use this figure in the forecast. We also note that for the anniversary in August they should give at least 20,000 rubles: parents promised 15,000, friends will probably give at least 5,000.

Expenses

When planning expenses, write down mandatory expenses in the month columns: food, utilities, travel, mobile communications, household chemicals and so on. Please note that in winter utility bills are higher due to heating, and for mobile communications, for example, in May you will spend more because you are going on vacation. These changes must be included in the budget.

So, in the example it is clear that in March heating season has ended, so the last increased payment for housing and communal services is scheduled for April. Vacation in May is also reflected. A budget maker is planning to go to visit her grandmother for three weeks. The tickets have already been purchased, so there is no point in taking this expense into account. Housing and communal services are considered according to standards and will not change.

At the same time, our hero will not spend money on travel for three weeks. And he cut his food costs in half: for a week he will eat at home, and will also take on part of the food costs from his grandmother.

The next step is to record obligatory but irregular expenses. Let's say in May you need to pay taxes for your apartment and car, in May you have a vacation, in August you have an anniversary, and in December your gym membership ends. Separately, consider the need to buy gifts for the holidays.

Large expenses can be planned in two ways:

  1. Find the entire amount from your monthly budget.
  2. Divide it over several months.

The hero of the example used the first method to plan expenses for the anniversary and the second - for compulsory motor liability insurance.

All that remains is to take into account the savings in the budget and calculate the balance. In the example for entertainment, according to the forecast, 8,020 rubles remain (258.7 rubles per day).

Budget adjustment

Every month, after receiving income from all sources, the budget will have to be adjusted to determine the amount that is actually on hand. As information becomes available, it is also worth considering changes in costs.

The person in the example received more than he expected.

He also spent a little less on food and mobile communications, and a little more on housing and utilities. As a result, after all the mandatory deductions, he is left with 12,535 rubles (404.3 rubles per day), which is almost twice as much as the previous result.

It is worth remembering that even if you have been extremely disciplined in adhering to a financial plan, drawn up taking into account all the details, circumstances can seriously adjust the budget. Losing a job, getting promoted, and having a child will all require major changes to your financial strategy. But even a poorly drawn up budget is better than no budget at all.

Many people say that money is like water - it quickly flows away into nowhere. If you can’t remember what you spent a significant amount of money on, it’s not clear where your salary goes and why it ends in literally two weeks, you can’t save up for the desired item or vacation, it’s time to start carefully calculating your income and expenses. Planning a family budget is the first step towards fulfilling your material desires.

Maintaining home accounting: the first stage - income

Each family builds its own material well-being according to their own scenario: someone strives to earn more, someone insists that all family members adhere to the principles of reasonable spending. The main thing is not to go to extremes, but to find your right path. This issue becomes especially relevant in families with the advent of children, when family expenses increase significantly. There are several methods for planning a family budget and what principles to adhere to.

The first step of any of these methods is to determine the items of family income and expenses. Income should include:

  • wages;
  • social payments;
  • income from bank deposits, from renting an apartment;
  • part-time job;
  • cash gifts.

It is clear that the first 3 positions are constant, the amounts of these incomes are known, and it is from them that the basis of the income side of the family budget will be formed. Part-time work and cash gifts may or may not exist, so you shouldn’t count on them, but use them as bonuses for pleasant spending.

Stage two - expenses

The second stage is counting expenses in various areas. Few people will be able to immediately say how much and what they are spending on, so it is important to keep track of your expenses for at least a month or two, even on small things. Then it will become clear how much the family spends and on what. How to keep records? Personal finance experts recommend writing down all your daily expenses: food, travel, entertainment.

Costs, like income, can be divided into several large categories:

  • obligatory payments;
  • expenses for food, travel;
  • spending on updating your wardrobe;
  • spending on entertainment, recreation;
  • unforeseen expenses for treatment, repairs, etc.

Mandatory payments include:

  • utilities;
  • payment mobile communications, Internet;
  • insurance;
  • payment for clubs, sections, additional classes for children.

Spending on food should also be divided into categories:

  • dairy products;
  • cereals;
  • meat, fish, poultry;
  • vegetables;
  • fruits;
  • sweets, juices, baked goods, etc.

In the first months of maintaining a family budget, experts recommend drawing up a table and advise recording all food costs, down to the smallest detail. Sometimes little things like buying 200 grams of candy, cookies, or a cup of coffee add up to significant sums over a week or month. All family members need to learn to remember and record their expenses so that later they can competently plan the family budget.

Stage three: comparison of income and expenses

How to plan a family budget correctly? Where to start planning a family budget? There are many questions regarding family budget planning. This is not a complicated science; it can and should be learned.

Let's take a look at simple example, we need to build an enterprise: What kind of enterprise? Of what? Where to build? How? With what funds? How many employees should be hired for construction? This is a small fraction of the questions you can imagine how difficult it is to plan the construction of a huge enterprise or factory.

A family is a small enterprise; in order to properly plan a family budget, you need to correctly approach each figure of income and expenses.

How to plan a family budget

Remember the expenses of the previous two or three months and, analyzing them, plan your family budget.

Remember and plan expenses for birthdays in the family, birthdays of relatives, do not forget about the main holidays: “ New Year", "Twenty-third of February", "Eighth of March".

During the summer months, prices for utilities and gasoline begin to rise.

In order not to forget all this, you can draw a small sign for yourself from January to December and indicate the main events and dates there.

When will you plan your budget for new month look at this plate and make changes.

Components of the family budget

There are six components of happiness; if one component stops working, happiness in the family disappears.

What is included in these six components: income, expenses (which does not exceed income), own housing, savings or reserves, deposits, joint values ​​of husband and wife.

How to manage a family budget

The family budget consists of income and expenses. Income includes: cash income, income in kind and benefits.

Income table

Example of income for a family of four

Income table

This family consists of four family members: father, mother and two children. The family's income is the father's salary of 35,000 rubles and the mother's salary of 15,000 rubles, one child goes to kindergarten, the second child goes to school. The total family income is 50,000 rubles. This family has no additional sources of income.

Income is spent on necessary goods and services for the whole family. After receiving money, income turns into expenses.

Expenses include all expenses spent on a family over a certain period of time, for example, a month.

How to distribute the family budget

It is very important to distribute the family budget for the month so that it is enough for all expenses and so that it does not exceed income.

There are two types of expenses: mandatory and discretionary.

Cost table

Consider the expenses of a family of four

Cost table

This family consists of four family members: father, mother and two children. Family expenses are included in the table.

Put your income and expenses on the scale

Example one:

Income 50,000 rubles Expenses 50,000 rubles

Your family's budget, your balanced income is equal to your expenses.

Example two:

Income 50,000 rubles Expenses 60,000 rubles

You have a budget deficit in your family, you don’t have enough money, you need to reconsider the expenses of the family budget.

Example three:

Income 50,000 rubles Expenses 40,000 rubles

Your income exceeds your expenses, resulting in a surplus Money or saving for future expenses.

The main point of drawing up a family budget is to learn how to balance between incoming income and outgoing expenses. We must learn to draw up a family budget so that expenses are always less than income.

Family budget for the month

Example of a budget for an average family with two children

Let's analyze the family budget table for an average family consisting of four people, two of them are children, we see that the family income is 50,000 rubles. The family has no additional sources of income.

The amount of expenses corresponds to the amount of income and is equal to 50,000 rubles. The costs include all necessary cost items:

    public utilities;

    fare;

  • payment for kindergarten;

    clothes, shoes;

    child's education;

    medicines;

Pay attention to the most main article, it's called cumulative.

In every family, when planning a family budget, first of all, it is necessary to take into account that expenses are less than income, and include an item in expenses and plan money there; this item is called a savings item.

This expense item should be 20% as a percentage of your salary; if you can’t save 20% the first time, start with 10% and reconsider your expenses.

It’s very good if you put more than 20% into a savings account; it could be 30%, 40% or even 50%.

The savings portion can be accumulated and spent on vacations, on large household appliances, on winter and autumn clothes, and so on.

Other expenses may vary in amount; some item or expense item may be more than presented in the table, some may be less.

Savings from maintaining a family budget

Considering the presented family budget for the month, for a family of four we received an income of 50,000 rubles and an expense of 40,000 rubles, from which we get a saving of 10,000 rubles monthly. You can use this savings to purchase large household appliances, winter clothes and shoes, for a vacation with the whole family.

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Conclusion

It is very important that the family income is always greater than the expenses, learn to plan correctly, review the family budget, do not waste money, because it is simply there, create a monthly savings part, and you will never need money. We wish you good luck.

Greetings to you, my dear regular readers and new subscribers. We are talking about serious things - finance, investments and business. And as always, there is simply not enough time for essential things. Therefore, today I decided to touch upon a very relevant topic for everyone - how to plan a family budget.

So, family finances in general are not very different from government or business finances. Each family has monthly income (salaries of its members, financial aid relatives, loans, rent from housing, interest on deposits, etc.) and expenses - costs of food, household maintenance, utility bills, interest on loans, etc.

As with the government budget, income and expenses do not always coincide over time, so it is important to understand when a financial hole may arise. To do this, I advise you to enter all planned income and expenses into the appropriate table. Let's look at an example.

Let's call our model the Petrovs' budget for the next month and write down all the estimated cash receipts and expenses of an average Russian family of 3 people. For example, it’s easier for me to imagine a budget in the form of a balance sheet. But perhaps you will find your own unique format.

As you can see, income exceeds family expenses by 14 thousand, that is, this money can be saved or invested. On the other hand, the family has a loan, and if they withdraw all their savings and add monthly income, the Petrovs could close it. But this does not make much economic sense, since the family needs to live somehow for a month.

If you continue the budget for the year, then additional expense items will appear, for example, for vacations, for the purchase of new furniture or equipment, Maintenance apartments or cars and so on. But the amounts themselves are not so important, but how not to waste potential savings, but to increase them. We'll talk about this further.

Analysis and planning

Of course, not every family has the opportunity to save not only 14, but even 5 thousand rubles. per month. Sometimes, on the contrary, there is a need to make an urgent purchase (were demolished winter boots, and for the whole family at once), and until salary is like until the moon. In this case, I have some advice:

  • Analyze your expenses, maybe you can cut back somewhere and free up some funds
  • Plan future purchases more carefully, always budget a little more for essentials than you plan to spend
  • Ask for help. Perhaps you can qualify for a subsidy from the state, a preferential loan from a bank, or your relatives or friends can borrow some of the money. Do not hesitate to ask and talk about your capabilities - for example, that you will earn so much next month and pay back the 5th part of the debt plus 10%. It will still be more profitable than taking out a consumer loan
  • Use the popular family budget planning technique using 5 envelopes

On the Internet you can find many variations on the theme - with 4, 5 or 7 envelopes, and derivatives - the “jug” method (JARS budgeting), the 60-10-10-10-10 method (Microsoft budgeting, 60%), etc. But the essence comes down to the following - for each significant group of expenses you need to take a separate envelope, write the name of the item and the amount. These could be expenses for food, clothing and shoes, medicines, gasoline, utilities, entertainment, savings, etc.

All income for the month is distributed among these envelopes, and when you need to make a purchase, money is taken only from the corresponding envelope.

If the money in one of the envelopes runs out, you cannot borrow it from the other. For the next month, you can refuse, for example, part of the entertainment or the purchase of expensive perfumes.

If you run out of money in the “Food” envelope (anything can happen), you will have to borrow it from another less important envelope. The money left in the envelopes at the end of the month can be put into savings or spent on entertainment, depending on your priorities and goals.

  • Invest. Save at least a thousand, but every month, and not just under your pillow. Money must work. If you invest them at at least 8% per annum, then after 10 years you will have 120 thousand plus 73 thousand percent in your account. And if you save not by a thousand, but by 5, count it yourself as homework

Accounting and automation

There are many programs and applications for accounting and automating family budgeting. I've already talked about some of them. In Russian, the envelope method is implemented only in online service“4 envelopes” from the Tradernet trading office (www.4konverta.com). It allows you to plan income and expenses, formulate financial goals and keep records of them.

I can also note the most popular applications for maintaining “home accounting” - AndroMoney, Expense Manager, “Family Budget”, and "Home accounting". In addition, you can always create a simple one that will most accurately reflect your finances. If you are interested in how to do this, write through the form feedback or in the comments under the article. And I will definitely answer you and help you create your own budget form. Don't forget to subscribe to my blog updates. See you again!

P.S. Personally, I use several “real envelopes” for my budget and, of course, my favorite CoinKeeper.