1. Map your own course. Create short and long-term financial goals, laying out a road map for how in what you need to get there.
2. Take a critical yet thorough and factual look see into your current financial situation. What needs to change? Look at your statements, credit report, tax returns, etc. Maybe you need some unbiased financial coaching for that ever beneficial outside perspective.
3. Now is the time to take control of your finances so your finances are no longer in control of you.
4. Take the necessary time to develop effective household budgeting rules. What a valuable step that will yield benefits for decades to come!
5. Have a long-term perspective as opposed to simply living "for the moment". Evaluate whether what you are about to purchase will be useful a year from now or will you have regretted spending the money.
6. Garbage in, garbage out. How accurate and honest you are with the numbers you use will determine how realistic your plan will be.
7. Master the manual process of budgeting before every using software. Understand the process, various worksheets, tools, and logs. Do not make the process complicated to the point that you simply end up quitting.
8. Develop good financial habits. Stop purchasing things on impulse. Have some will power and walk away. When asked to buy something over a set amount of say $30.00 or $50.00, make it a habit to not make the decision until the next day.
9. Work together with your spouse. Having both the husband and wife on board with the household budgeting planning is pivotal to its overall success. I have had clients that the wife did not value the process and another couple it was the man. And you know what? Both families failed and are now still mired in the same financial muck as when they started. When both the husband and wife work together on any issue, success will happen.
10. A family budget affords you an incredible opportunity to make well informed financial decisions. It is powerful knowledge that you otherwise would not have access to. You know exactly how much money you have left to spend in each particular budgeting category, which becomes an effective freeing mechanism when making buying decisions.
Do you know how to make a budget? Use these ten rules to help you wrap your brain around this vitally important process you need to instill for your family (and yourself if you are not married).
What about you? Do you have a random thought on household budgeting worth saying to help others? Give it below now.