Printable: Family Budget Binder

One of our goals as a family this year is to  better handle our finances. We target to increase our savings and we dream to further our small investment. Our family is growing hence we need to run our finances smoothly. My husband and I made a clear commitment this year:  We have to better handle the money we have to spend and save.

Our Simple System of Budgeting

What’s your family’s system in budgeting? Are you using the old concept of envelope budgeting? Whatever it is, I am happy to know that you have a system and that you allocate your funds wisely.

It made me smile reading what the WhatToExpect website said on budgeting, “…Not having a strategy for managing your money is like hitting the highway without a GPS.” So true. We’ve been there. It’s so fun to splurge, isn’t it? But the consequences can never outweigh that snap of fun you had when you go beyond your budget.

For the past months (yup, just a few months ago!), my husband and I have been managing our finances quite Okay. Each month, we set aside an evening to take the time needed to write down our family budget. Our  budget system. On a sheet of paper, we figure the money coming in and going out. We write down our weekly, monthly and yearly expenses. We allot a portion to save and invest. And a portion for guilt-free splurges. Recently, I’ve created a simple budget binder to help us carefully plan our finances.

 

 

 

I’m a bit uncomfortable blogging about managing our finances here, but I feel that’s it’s a little achievement that I need to share.  Some of you may have been running your family budget smoothly from the start and I admire you, my family is just starting but I am glad we are now making the step.

Today on the blog, I am sharing this free printable that’s close to my heart: Our Home Budget Planner. I’ve created these budget planner sheets to help us organize our finances, and I am hopeful that they will help you organize your family’s finances, too.

The free printable budget binder I am about to share comes in  pretty colors to make budgeting fun. I’ll give you a preview of the sheets included in the binder so you can see them before deciding to download.

The Monthly Check-In 

Each month, we need to revisit and to assess our family’s budget. It helps us recognize where we did great and where we should do some tweaks.

The Financial Goal Sheet

What are your financial goals? Planning to zero your credit cards (they say that the sooner the cards are paid off, the closer you’ll be to saving money)? Saving up for a new car? This is what we use to set ours.

The Weekly Expenses Chart

It’s important to track your expenses weekly because you can easily spot where you tend to overspend. We use this chart to log our weekly expenditures.

The Recurring Expenses Log

There are of course family expenses that would fall under the Fixed Category. These are the expenses that we need to regularly shell out monthly, quarterly or annually. Expenses like mortgage, home, health and car insurance, membership fees and other annual, quarterly or monthly expenses. They are all logged here.

It’s really liberating to have a set budget. As a mom, my heart is more at peace knowing that we are not spending blindly. The next thing that we need to learn as a family is to find more ways to down size our expenditure to increase our savings. Baby steps we will make. =)

Do you want to download these budget organizers? Get them here:

Family Budget Binder by Shining Mom Blog

I hope you can also use these Family Budget Binders, moms!