Household Budgeting Basics

A lot of people struggle with money. They spend just as much as they bring n. They think that they are living check to check when they actually aren’t. They just lack discipline. Those folks have a spending problem. Creating a household budget will help them conquer those money issues. They will know how much money is coming in and how much is going out. Here are some household budgeting basics to help you get started.

You can use a spreadsheet to include all of your information. It should have your income, housing, utilities, consumer debt, food & groceries, savings, and entertainment.

Income

Income is the first thing that should be on your spreadsheet. You want to include everything you make such as paychecks, side hustle income, bonuses, and other forms of money that you will receive.

Housing

If you still live at home with your parents and don’t have to pay anything, you’re lucky. For the rest of us, we have to set something aside for our housing costs. The housing category should include your rent or your mortgage payment as well as renters or homeowners insurance. You should also include something for repairs if you are a homeowner.

Utilities

Utilities are the next item on the budget. It should include electricity, water, heating and air, cable, the internet, cell phone and sewage. Some of those utilities may be included in your rent, so that is one less expense that you have to worry about.

Consumer Debt

Hopefully, most of y’all don’t have to list this one. Unfortunately, I do. Consumer debt is something that I have too much of. I blame my early-mid 20’s for most of it. This category includes student loan bills, credit card bills, car payments, and installment loans. I can’t wait until I’m able to delete this category from my budget.

Food & Groceries

We all need food to survive. You always want to make sure that you get a good deal when it comes to buying food. You should make sure that you budget enough money for this category. It’s easy to go overboard with this one. Pay close attention to it.

Savings

The next category is savings. You can break this one down into several categories if you choose to, but today I’ll keep it as one thing. Included in this category is saving for an emergency, saving for health care, saving for maintenance and saving for a vacation. Planning for this stuff will help you out a lot in the long run. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

Entertainment

Entertainment is the final category. After you’ve added your money to the other categories, you should save something for entertainment. Whether you like sports, watching movies, or going to plays, you need to have some money set aside for it.

Creating a budget will help you spend your money wiser. If you set your budget up correctly, you won’t feel like you’re living check to check anymore, because you’re not. You know exactly where your money is going each month.

Jason Butler

Jason Butler is an Atlanta native, as well as businessman, blogger and teacher. Not only is Jason a prolific flipper, marketer, writer and side hustler his number of years in higher education and student support have given him expert knowledge in understanding the economics of the student loan industry.