Expenses: Managing Your Monthly Household Budget

Managing monthly family expenses is often challenging, especially if you have extra expenses such as medical expenses that are not ordinary. Creating an extensive budget helps ensure you have enough each month and can hopefully save a little for emergencies and fun. When managing monthly expenses, always put essential expenses, such as housing, food, prescriptions and transportation, first.

What Are Essential Expenses?

The essential expenses you need to survive include housing, groceries, transportation and healthcare, including prescriptions. Discretionary expenses include private school, entertainment, eating out, clothing, and gifts. Most people consider saving money a discretionary expense, but we consider it an essential expense. Even if you can budget only $10 per pay period, you are at least trying.

Managing Monthly Expenses

When you look at a pile of bills, your expenses may seem overwhelming. Using a monthly budget planner to create a budget helps see your monthly expenses in a new light – they’ll seem more manageable, especially once you start cutting discretionary expenses.

Planning and Discipline Make Lead to Financial Stability

Overhead is the amount of money it costs you to live. Discipline and planning can reduce overhead and allow some breathing room, including having enough to save – even if it’s not much. Creating a structured budget using a monthly budget planner can help you plan for leaner times and save for the future. Browse our blog posts for tips on handling home expenses and creating a budget that works for you.