Living on a budget

I asked other mommy friends about how they handle their family's finances and I am amazed by the variety of responses. For instance, some moms prefer to their monthly budget and do the groceries only once a month plus short trips to the palengke weekly. Others, like me, have a monthly budget equally divided into 4 or 5 weeks for weekly groceries and marketing tasks.

Indeed, budgeting is part of a mom's responsibilities. Dads, admit it. Even when your wives are working full-time, the budgeting task is still left for them to manage. Back in 2006 when our home was still being built, I made a Microsoft Excel file where I religiously listed down our expenses versus the funds that came in. The ones listed under our expenses are not only the big ones like mortgage, house rental, weekly groceries, and payments to utilities. I also listed even the small things like the budget for trips to the mall, dvds, eat outs, and emergency funds. Since I stopped teaching for a year, I also gave a monthly budget for myself to cover my kikay activities like going to the salon and facial center and buying my diabetic medication and weight loss products. It looks kinda confusing, but no. Once I got the hang of it, it began to become an easy task. More of like a habit really.

For those of you who do not have time to make an Excel file for your budget, you can try researching online for budgeting worksheets. One worksheet I found is in Momsbudget.com. The site also has nice printables such as the Monthly Menu Planner, Freezer Contents Inventory, and the Grocery Price Log.

I hope you can share with us your budgeting tips, too!

Did you like my post? CLICK THIS to have my posts delivered straight to your email inbox.