Family Budget Articles | Personal Finance

By: Meidialina Chen

A husband or a wife has the same responsibility on family savings, investments and expenditures. In short, both are responsible on making the family budget and make sure it works.

They need to calculate total income they earn and to plan the expenditure. Especially when they have kids..... They need to prepare tuition fees besides their own retirement plan.

What usually happens, a spouse hold his/her own income and keep secret from another, even he/she is lying about his/her expenditures avoiding the other spouse to get mad of his/her shopping habits. When the real financial problems come, they will blame one another for not taking the responsibility.

Marriage is about 2 persons in the same boat, going towards one direction, they have to cooperate well to reach their destination while they enjoy the journey. This includes financial goal.

Both have to negotiate about how they want to use the money, how much they will spend on grocery, tuition fee, cars, gasoline, make up, loans, vacation, and others. And work on those commitments, they should not break the rules and making excuses....

Please, do not blame your kids when you buy expensive sport shoes for them. You are the adult; you are the one who takes control. Do not make excuses that are for them, sometimes it is just the parents themselves that cannot stop the impulse purchases. Maybe the sales promotion girl was persuasive, or maybe there was a sale going on with 50% discount for buying the hot items.

Making a budget is a must, but making commitment on it is the most difficult part. That is why you should co-operate with your spouse to remind each other.

Sometimes to make sure you run well on your family budget, you can make some rules like:

Delay buying expensive items for 3 days, and if after 3 days you still want them, you will discuss your intention to buy with your spouse

Only buy what are needed, only buy grocery for 3 days stocks, so you can avoid overstock vegetables and meat.

Make a shopping list of what you need, and when you overbought yourself, cut your leftover money as much as you overspent, and put it on a 'Piggy Bank", but please keep your Piggy bank as far as you can, so it will not tempt you.

Make a budget on gifts. Gifts are presents, a way to show that you care. When you care a lot does not mean you have to give something extremely expensive. Make a promise on each other that the maximum for a gift is $ 30, or another amount, depending on your agreement.

Celebrate birthdays and anniversaries on budget, both spouse have to understand that the most important thing is the meaning of the celebration, not the event itself.

I am sure all of you can think of many other ideas to keep your family budget works.