3 Family Budgeting Tips for Beginners

I recently talked with a colleague of mine about this review system our job is now doing on our reports. Without boring you with all that, I want to cut to the chase. I took something from that conversation that I want to convert to other areas of my life. She has been excelling at this new process while it’s taking me a little longer to perfect it. Partly because I haven’t been trying all the way to conform. But she said, “Katie, what you really need to do is surrender to the process.” I sat there for a second and was like you know what you’re right. I’ve spent time just trying to do things my way rather than understanding the thought process about what they need from me. As we continued to talk I realized I do this in other aspects of my life as well, for instance with budgeting or with food intake and my fitness journey.

I’ve come across systems and processes that have worked for others but never really just took the time to sit down and say this worked for them there has got to be a way for me to have this work for me. 

A little more effort put towards creating our family budget has gotten us a long way since the start of 2020. We are now in the range of being able to pay off all our debt aside from the last little bit of student debt and our home. So how did we do it? Below are my beginner tips for creating and sticking with a family budget:

Tip #1

Get in the right mindset. To make sure your budgeting is effective you must be in the right mindset. Budgeting is one of those things where you need to be all in, there’s no one foot in one foot out. If you’re married make sure you’ve got the buy-in of your significant other. All parties involved need to understand why a budget is being built. Start strong…and maintain that strength throughout! 

Tip #2

Create a plan. You must develop your plan of action. This includes the type of budget you are creating. Is it a household budget? Is it a personal budget? Are you budgeting to have extra money for a vacation? Stating the reason you’re creating a budget will further display your “Why,” and keep you on track. I don’t know what type of person you are, but if I put something on paper and I can see it, it makes it more real! Within the plan you’ll want to determine how often you are going to check in on your budget. Another important determinant is how your household income comes in. Is it two times a month? Or biweekly? I’ll do a separate post of the questions you’ll need to ask yourself for your plan.  

Tip #3

Regular check-ins. Formally state how often you’ll be checking in on your budget. Are you going to check in once a week, or every other payday? You’ll want to create regular check-ins to make sure you are following the budget or if you need to alter items to reflect your current status. As you pay things off, the money of your budget will likely be allocated to other spaces. 

To emphasize the message behind the conversation I had at the beginning of this post – whatever it is your working towards if you are finding that you aren’t progressing in ways that you think you should, sit down and evaluate how you’re attacking the approach. Are the items I am working through realistic? Can you see permanent change if you make these alterations in what you are currently doing? There is always room for improvement the trick is being able to put a mirror on yourself and realizing that you don’t have all the answers. There will certainly be times where you have to take the back seat and learn from others.

By now I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “Trust the Process,” especially if you’re a 76ers fan, but to take it a step further Surrender To The Process. You may have evidence that it is worked for others so now the ball is in your court to determine what it is you need to tweak to start seeing results too! 

The 3 tips above are the ground floor to set you up with a solid foundation. I’ll continue to dive deeper and talk further about creating your budget itself. With Savvy September I want to preach that we should want to set something up right the first time. Do you/your family have a budget currently in place? How’s it going? Are you making progress? Let’s talk about it!