Home budgeting: how to make your finances easier

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

If you can't learn how to optimize your income and expenses, are used to living on credit and can't raise the required amount, then you should try to start doing home bookkeeping. At first, it may seem to you that this is a waste of time, because you will no longer have money from this. But few people think that an accurate record of all expenses often helps to reduce them.

Accounting software

If your family now and then has conflicts over money, then you should seriously think about how to calculate expenses and income. Of course, all entries can be made in a notebook or notepad, but this will not allow you to clearly see what amounts go where. It is much more convenient to use special programs. If you do not want to deal with their capabilities, then try keeping a home budget in Excel first.

By the way, do not underestimate this program: in it you can not only write down your expenses, calculate them, group them in a way convenient for you, but also build a chart or graph that will show where all the money you earned has gone. Do not look for ready-made tablesfor accounting - it is unlikely that you will be comfortable with a scheme created by someone. Take a few minutes and make it the way you want it.

For example, keeping a home budget can fit into a regular 3-column table, where you will indicate the income received, expenses incurred and sum up the total amount. But this is not very convenient and visual, it is better to distinguish between expenditure items, where food, utility bills, clothing, entertainment, spending on a car, rent, and loans are put into separate categories. You can also split income: do not forget to take into account windfall income, interest on deposits and others.

Special programs for accounting

If you don't want to reinvent the wheel and tinker with tables, then you can download one of the programs that allows you to make home budgeting as comfortable as possible. Some of them are offered absolutely free of charge, others require payment for their download and further use. So, you can install "Home Auditor", "Home Accounting", "Family", "Creepy", "Family Wallet" or some other program, there are dozens of different options.

When choosing, carefully read the description proposed by the developer, but do not disregard the user reviews of the program you like. Only those who have already tried home budgeting with it can tell you if it is convenient.

Required Capabilities

Agree, write down youryou can also have income and expenses on the sheet, so more serious requirements should be imposed on the program. So, you should not only have the opportunity to make all expenses, but also group them, build graphs in order to visually see the movement of funds. It is also desirable that the program for maintaining a home budget supports the possibility of entering information about deposits and loans, automatically calculates interest using the method you specified and adds them to the corresponding article.

It's very convenient if the program has a "reminder" function. So, with its help, you will not forget to pay bills on time, reissue a deposit or repay a loan. You should also pay attention to the interface of the application with which you want to optimize your household budget. You will have to open it almost every day, so the look of the program should attract you.