Home economy. Personal finance management. How to keep a home budget

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

The home economy is of particular interest to those who have just escaped from parental care and left for free bread. And if earlier dad and mom took care of this, now a young man has to do it. That's personal finance management and will be discussed in this article.

General information

Home economy means solving the arisen economic and personal issues and problems at the expense of available resources. The primary physiological needs of a person are water, food and sleep. After that, it is necessary to solve the issue of comfort - what to wear in order not to freeze, and where to live. This is the minimum basis that must be solved in order to exist calmly. Of course, you can raise more questions about rest, and about self-realization, self-development and many more different points, but for now let's focus on food, sleep, water and clothes.

So, in order for the body to be strong, you need proper and high-quality nutrition. Drinkable water is also required. All this needs to be supported by financial investments. The home economy almost never experiences problems with this, since it is still impossible to make money on it.problematic. In extreme cases, you can go farming and grow your own food. But still, we are interested in what to buy it directly for. In order to save personal finances, you should be interested in the places where fairs are held, where you can buy potatoes, cabbage, corn and other gifts grown on the ground by the same farmers. In addition, a high concentration of sellers and buying directly from manufacturers contribute to the fact that it becomes possible to spend less money. Thanks to this, savings in the household budget are ensured.

First steps

But how is the home economy optimally organized? This is where planning, optimization and savings come into play. We often like to nod our heads in the direction of American millionaires. What escapes the attention of most people is the fact that fortunes are formed by hard work and thrift. Most first-generation millionaires are people who saved money for their retirement and only became we althy in adulthood. Therefore, before you manage your personal finances, you need to take a few first steps:

1. Create a family budget. It is necessary to familiarize yourself with the basic ways of managing all funds, consider the pros, cons, and make sure that this process is not tedious and burdensome.
2. Especial attention should be paid to income and expenses that fall on the family budget. Moreover, it is very desirable to break them into categories so thatstreamline the accounting process.
3. It's best to have a detailed idea of where the money is being spent. To do this, you need to document all expenses. Of course, it is not necessary to do this all your life, but you can live in this mode for several months to get a general idea. And it is possible that an understanding will come that too much money is going into some positions.

This is especially true in the first three months of independent life.

Planning, compiling and optimizing

So now home accounting needs to be organized. The family budget, alas, often does not forgive miscalculations, and this must be approached with all responsibility. Initially, it is necessary to analyze the cash flows that a person or a cell of society receives. After that, you need to start planning. Here you need to highlight the short-term and long-term perspectives. The first includes solving problems that exist now and will not go anywhere. So, it is necessary to pay utility bills, food, transport expenses. All this must be taken into account and must be displayed in the short term of the family budget. This will allow you to build a balanced budget that will satisfy basic needs. And what about the long term? This should include who you want to become. So, if there is a goal to become an entrepreneur with multimillion-dollar incomes, then you need to take care of the foundation. In other words, it is necessary to provide for some personal finances to be directed to a certain deposit account in a bank or in a mattress, for subsequentextraction at the right time, when a new life will be given a start. In order to evaluate your strengths, you can initially create three types of budgets: optimistic, realistic and pessimistic, and then evaluate what works better and act within the framework of the previously used tools. Although you can continue to apply the triple approach in the future, if you consider that it is necessary and effective.

What to bet on in terms of assistant?

You can save data in a notebook (granary book) or a computer (PDA or smartphone). What to choose? It is better to use the first option only in cases where electronics is not available for certain reasons. In this case, it is enough to draw three columns: income, expenses, total. The first two are necessary to reflect the transactions that were carried out, and the third - to reconcile the data. Regarding electronics, we can say that it is necessary for more convenient recording of expenses and subsequent work with them (although there is no one like it). We will not dwell on this in detail, but will pay attention only to a few of the most useful functions:

1. Generation of reports. An extremely useful and important feature. The computer allows you to quickly process the available data and present a report in order to successfully analyze it in the future. And based on the information received, successful decisions can be made.
2. Availability of several types of accounts. It is very convenient that you can allocate a separate bank deposit, family budget, mutual funds and other working moments.
3. Planning. Allows you to enter estimated expenses and future payments, thanks to which you can simulate the situation, what will happen after a certain time.
4. Calculation of interest on loans and deposits. What can I say - a very pleasant and motivating little thing.
5. Debt control. To accurately reflect financial affairs, you can also record here those who borrowed something. This feature will not let you forget who received the money and who gave it to you.
6. Data protection. All information located in the program can be protected from prying eyes with a strong password.

Help Software (SW)

Many are interested in how to keep a home budget in a notebook. An example of such an approach, although it deserves respect, still has its drawbacks, and indeed, it is obsolete. Although the notebook allows you to make the data less whimsical, it is still better to stock up on more ergonomic software. This approach is both more convenient and will easily become a habit due to its comfort. We recommend to pay attention to the following software:

1. "Home Finance".
2. "Creepy". Not the most functional, but simple and without unnecessary frills program.
3. "Home economy". Nice software that allows you to conveniently carry out calculations.
4. "Family budget".
5. "Home bookkeeping". Multifunctional program with a lot of different settings.
6. AceMoney.
7. Family. Excellentprogram, one of the best (some calmly assign it No. 1) of those that are presented on the Internet. It is advisable to use later versions, since the first had a fairly large number of software problems.
8. MoneyTracker. A multifunctional and convenient program that can be used for both family budget and personal finance.

Also, as one of the program options, we should mention such a program as Microsoft Office like Excel (or similar ones). The advantage of this approach is that information about all expenses and the like can be viewed both on stationary devices like personal computers and laptops, and on mobile tablets and smartphones.

How to save?

Well, an important point is cost optimization. In our reality, up to 2/5 of all funds are spent on utilities. It should also be noted that tariffs are growing annually by 15-20 percent, which cannot but grieve. Therefore, it is necessary to think about how to minimize the amount of payments. If we talk about the winter period, then the installation of meters and the insulation of apartments / houses greatly help here. In addition, you can monitor your he alth so that you do not have to spend significant money on medicines in the future. If desired and possible, you can notice the car / public transport on the bike. Thus, it will be both a savings and a he alth benefit.

Marketing in the home economy stands apart. It aims to identify needs and meet them. Therefore, beforeshopping and recommend making lists of necessary products so as not to squander your financial resources on something unnecessary. It's no secret that professional marketers are very good at fooling their brains, and as soon as you go to the store for bread, you leave with a whole bunch of packages. Therefore, it is important to keep your head clear and not succumb to manipulation. The priority system helps a lot. If there is not enough will for this, then determine the goals and objectives of the home economy and always keep them within walking distance. This will facilitate the process of self-discipline.

About the person leading the budget, let's say a word

Initially, it is necessary to determine who will monitor the money and their spending. It is necessary to discuss the features of the process of their distribution. It is important to note the type of budget: joint or separate. To achieve mutual understanding and avoid conflicts, it is necessary to learn how to handle money wisely. To do this, the partner in charge of the budget must understand the importance of planning and be able to make informed decisions. To maximize the effectiveness of the measures taken, care should be taken to draw a clear structure of income with expenses. This is necessary in order to understand how expediently the money is being spent. Maintaining a budget for a family where there is only one person is quite easy. But if there are two of them, this requires a certain skill. Initially, it will be quite difficult to count money, but after a month or two, after the result is envied,it won't feel so burdensome anymore.

Create your own budget

So, it is necessary to estimate how much you can count on. It is best if during such an operation to rely on the data of the previous year. Thanks to this, it will be possible to have an approximate basis for spending. After all, if the budget is compiled for the first time and there is no truthful data, then it may turn out that a lot has not been taken into account, and the costs have been underestimated. True, it is necessary to make adjustments for inflation. Since there is no faith in the official data published by the government, the percentage value of the increase in utility bills can be taken as a reference point. Such elements of the home economy will make it possible to adopt a family budget that is close to reality. Also, you do not need to choose an absolutely optimal development path, you should make sure that various sudden expenses are provided for. This may be the need for treatment, and pocket money for children, and a banal desire for sweets, when everything is bad and you need to somehow console yourself. True, more than five percent should not be allocated for this business. Some of this can be used in a slightly different way. Consider a situation where parents give their children pocket money. You can not limit it, but go a different way. Here is one small example. Children are given a certain amount once a month, which they can spend as they see fit. Let's say three hundred rubles, although you can stop at a thousand. This is not regulated in any way, but at the same time there will be no more support. That is, if the child spends all the money at once - well, he himselfdecided, no sweets, toys and other things until the end of the month. In the future, he will think about what to do with the funds allocated to him, and learn to handle money carefully, build his own budget.

Recording income/expenses

Assume that electronics are used for this purpose. How to calculate the household budget in this case? An important advantage of the software is that there is an extensive classification of expenses. So, you can write down how much was spent on transport, food, recreation and entertainment, medicines, and a communal apartment. Depending on the functionality, even a record of what and how much was bought may be available, for example, three ice creams for twenty-five rubles. In this way, you can check your spending very carefully and make an appropriate decision that will help you operate more economically.

Let's consider a small example. It is possible to take a sandwich from home, which costs twenty rubles, or buy a bun at work for fifty. The difference seems to be small, but for a month - five hundred rubles. Too much, but not too much? Then for the year - six thousand rubles. Almost the minimum monthly pension. And that's in one year! On one bun! Amazing, right? And if you carefully and scrupulously calculate your expenses, then you will understand that by slightly changing your lifestyle, you can save significantly. One more example? Let's imagine a small town of 70,000 people. The fare for a fixed-route taxi is 10 rubles. 20 is spent per day. Let's sayA person travels to work only 20 days a month. Total - 400. For the year - 4800. You can buy a good, high-quality and reliable sports bike that will pay off in 3-5 years. On it, having acquired the proper skill, you can safely accelerate to 100 kilometers per hour (although do not forget about the limit of 60 km / h) and get to your place of work faster than by minibus. And this still does not take into account the he alth benefits that the cyclist will receive. And is it worth saying that traffic jams are not terrible for them?

Conclusion

In order to have an idea of the areas of your own life that can be improved, you must first make a thorough and detailed analysis of spending. Based on these data, you can make the plan as accurate as possible. And then financial management will be easier. After all, it is one thing to hear from someone that you can provide for your life. It is quite another thing to calculate that it is possible to save and invest, say, so much money in eight years that in the future it will be possible to live without hunchbacking somewhere in an unloved job, but doing what you like. And to achieve such a beautiful, exciting and necessary goal, you will have to work hard. You may have to combine several jobs, but believe me, it's worth it. After all, what could be more beautiful than the opportunity to decide for yourself what your free time will be spent on? Where should you direct your work? What goals to achieve? To be the master of your life is the destiny of man.