Budgeting is a whole lot more complex when you become a mom, compared to when you were single and carefree. If you’d like to discover a few tips that will help you navigate budgeting as a mom, you’ve come to the right place. Simply continue reading to discover a handy guide to budgeting which has been designed specifically for busy moms.
Mom Budgeting Tips:
Consider using cash in order to keep your spending under control:
If you currently rely on cards to pay for all of your weekly shopping and have a hard time sticking to your budget, it may be worth going on an all cash diet. Where you’ll take out all of the money which you need for the week out from an ATM machine, so that you’ll be able to keep track of exactly how much money you have left in your weekly budget.
Better yet, you may want to seperate your weekly budget into different envelopes, for different types of expenses. As example, you may want to place your food budget in one envelope and your gas money in another envelope. Which you’ll be able to keep in a folder or a large wallet.
Once you’ve spent all the money in one of your envelopes, try to wait till the next week in order to replace the money which you’ve spent. Instead of being tempted to get out your credit card and to spend money that’s not in your budget.
Purchase your family’s gifts during major sales:
Instead of waiting till the week before your husband or child’s birthday to purchase their gifts, you can save a lot of money if you think ahead and purchase your family’s gifts during major sales such as Black Friday. It’s also well worth planning to purchase all of your Christmas gifts during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Which should save you several hundred dollars, which you’l be able to put aside for a rainy day.
Make sure that you have a rainy day fund:
Instead of living from pay check to pay check which can be an extremely dangerous move, it’s a wise move to put any surplus money in your budget towards an emergency fund or a rainy day fund. That way if you find yourself stuck paying for unexpected car related bills, vet bills or medical bills, you’ll have plenty of money in your emergency fund in order to pay your unexpected bills. Without having to dig into your primary savings account.
Swap your unwanted kids clothes and toys with family friends:
If your kids have outgrown their clothes and need new clothes you may be able to swap some of your unwanted kids clothes with your friends or family members. Which is a win win situation which can help you and your friends and family members save money. As an added benefit, you’ll also be able to free up much needed room in your home as your home won’t be cluttered with items that your family no longer uses.
So if the thought of budgeting as a mom makes you feel stressed out, hopefully you’ll be able to use all the smart family budgeting tips which are listed above to your advantage.