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Managing a household isn’t easy. Not in any respect. When talking about a household, we tend to take into account that there are usually other people in it, too. Usually children that rely solely on you to make their everyday life as painless as possible. If you’re having trouble with your finances, that can be a hard proposition. That’s why we’re going to look through a few steps to make it easier.
Tracking your spending
The very first thing you need to do is build an understanding of how much money you’re spending and where you’re spending it. A lot of us, when planning our finances, tend to forget the little spends we have on ourselves. Or we don’t count those little family trips. However, if you really want to grab hold of your finances, you need to count every single penny. You can sit down every night and put all your receipts together. You can also make it easier on yourself by counting as you spend. Mobile apps that help you track spending can be very useful in this regard. When you’ve got a few weeks or even a couple months of data, you can start the next step.
The budget
Get ready for a bit of depressing number crunching. Sadness and even a bit of embarrassment are usual when you calculate your budget. If you’re like most families, you might see quite a bit of money being spent more frivolously than you would like. The budget is going to help you bring into account every expenditure you deal with in a month. The biggest ones there will be the mortgage/rent and any car finance. Fuel, insurance and maintenance costs will make a hefty appearance, too. Breaking down the budget helps you put your spending into fractions. This way you can see how much of your money is being spent in the right place and how much is being diverted unnecessarily.
Energy bill
Once you’ve put the budget together, you can start to understand just where you might able to save a bit of money. One of the places that it’s far from difficult to save more money in is for your energy bills. The first thing you can easily cut down on is appliances that aren’t turned off properly. Things like televisions and computers left on standby overnight. There are also a lot of replacements you can make to save energy in the home. New HVAC systems and, to an extent, LED lights cost a good deal of money. Consider it an investment, however. These replacements need to made at some point and will drastically cut down the amount you spend on your energy bills every year. If you have kids, convince them to spend less time in front of their screens by doing more with them, as well.
Water bills
Another considerable bill you get regularly is all down to water usage. You might have heard a lot about the water crisis we’re already starting to face. It’s likely that, as time goes by, water will only get more expensive. Prepare for the possibility of those rising water bills by reducing the amount of water you use now. You can start by getting things like smart faucets and shower heads that actually reduce the amount of water used by these appliances. If you like to garden, using more grey water from places like the sinks can reduce it, too.
Insurance
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Entertaining the kids
It’s not joke that keeping your kids entertained can actually be on the larger costs associated with running a household. Keeping them busy is a benefit every parent needs and you don’t want them living miserably, either. It can be a lot softer on your wallet and beneficial for the family if you find ways to make entertainment, together. There are a lot of different cheap or free fun things you can find for you and the kids. It could be having a simple arts and craft day using cheap materials. It might be taking a trip out to the local park, the library or even the pet shop. Get them out and play some kind of sport with them. The possibilities are endless.
Finding the best deals
When you’re starting to look for more ways to cut down your spending, you need to start developing a keen sense for deals. It can be easy to shop around supermarkets for your everyday groceries. A lot of stores have online counterparts where you can easily find the price of one item. Then you just cross-reference it with the others. Find out where you can have your cheapest shop or even split it into two shops depending on different items. For the costlier kind of item, like appliances or tools, there are sites like Smart Consumer for that, too. These sites can not only tell you which items are the cheapest but also the most reliable and long-lasting.
Savings tactics
Hopefully, all these savings should be contributing to some sort of plan. For anyone running a household, there tends to be a few different reasons one might save. You might want an emergency fund put aside for life’s everyday problems. You may be saving up for a holiday or a deposit on a new home or renovation. You might even be saving for college funds or your own retirement. These are short, middle and long-term goals. You should get used to thinking of them that way, because you will want to split your savings between them. There are a range of different savings tactics. Piggy banks and the like might good for those short term savings. With middle and long term ones, however, you should do your research on which banks can offer you the best results.
Tax deductions
Tax should always be a part of your budget that you account for in the full amount. However, when it comes time to do them, you can start making big cuts to how much you’ve budgeted for them. There are tax deductions for all sorts of reasons, depending on your home life. For example, if you work from home, you might be able to get the VAT taken off the purchases that are purely work related. Similarly, if you install the kind of energy improvements we mentioned before, you might be able to get deductions for those as well. Do your research and find the hidden deductions that might end up saving you quite a bit of money.
Taking control of your household finances is all about understanding them. About breaking down the numbers and taking responsibility for your money. Finding the opportunities to spend less and even save more are a lot clearer when you have a full grasp of your finances. Just keep tracking everything those opportunities will appear more and more often.
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