Keeping on top of your finances as a big family isn’t always easy, and it definitely isn’t always easy to keep those finances within your desired budget.
Having a big family is expensive and that is an unfortunate truth.
It can become overwhelming to have to keep tabs on the finances of so many people and parents can find themselves very stressed with their financial situation.
But never fear, in this blog, we have a couple of easy tips to help you out with big family budgeting.
It will always be a big task and we are by no means saying that these tips will make all of your problems disappear, but they are a start, and a start is always a step in the right direction.
Keep tabs on what comes in and what goes out
Very often our spending is out of control because we don’t keep tabs on what exactly we are spending every week or every month.
To best keep on top of our spending and our budgeting, we need to find an easy way of keeping tabs on what comes in and what goes out. From there, we can reevaluate how much we are regularly spending and we can decide to make better choices based on the data.
When we are aware of exactly what the problems are, it is much easier for us to fix them.
A great way of doing this is to have an Excel sheet with everybody’s incomes and any benefits in one column, and then everybody’s spending and outgoings on the other side.
There are lots of free Excel templates you can find online to help you out with this if you aren’t a naturally tech-savvy person. It doesn’t have to be overly complicated in order to help.
Meal prep and avoid takeaways
One of the biggest unnecessary spending in households is wasted food and takeaway food.
We can cut down on our food bills each month by meal prepping lots of meals in advance and making the most out of the ingredients we buy in our grocery shopping, and by cutting down on how many takeaways we buy.
Of course, we all need to have treats every now and again.
But takeaway food is expensive and it adds up to being a big outgoing over time.
Batch cook as much as you can and you will both save money and be less likely to resort to a takeaway because dinner has already been prepared.
A win-win.
Encourage your children to keep piggy banks
If you have a few children, chances are they rack up a big household bill.
And it’s not their fault.
But you can make your money stretch a little further by encouraging them to keep their own piggy banks and save up their money for any treats they want to buy for themselves.
Encourage them to keep their pocket money and any money they get from relatives for birthdays and Christmas in their piggy bank and only use it for something they really want.
This will help teach them patience with money and it will cut down on frequent costs in buying treats, toys, and rewards.
Something that helps one family member out helps the whole family when it comes to budgeting.
