In my household, it's my husband that "brings home the bacon" as far as finances
go. However, I am the person in the house that plans and budgets everything and in
a way along with my responsibilities of raising my children, it is just as important.
When I budget, I go look at the bills and when they are do and then I get my planner
which has a full sized calendar in it and I write down the bills we need to pay on
Fridays which are my husbands pay days. It can be hard sometimes because my
husband never has the same weekly hours so I never know how much his paycheck
will be but we do the best that we can and it generally works out. Sometimes there
are variances in his paycheck that force me to re-budget the weekly bills but
generally what I've planned for the week usually works.
%I track expenses all of the time but I also feel there is a huge variance in what I plan
to spend and what I actually spend. I am very visual so I write stuff down all the
time. However when you have as many kids as I do, they tend to need and want
things and that budget I have generally changes. I need to get better at not
spending wastefully but it happens sometimes. The only method I use is writing
expenses I know that I will end up spending on but I already know when I write them
that I will probably go over budget.
%I've learned that I need to spend my money more wisely. I need to stop blowing it on
extra things that I don't need. I need to make a budget and stick to it the best that I
can, and I also want to start saving up some more money in case of emergencies.
Tax withholding can definitely mess with budgeting particularly in situations like
mine when the income is never one set amount. The more you make, the more they
take and you will never know the set amount that they will take so it's hard to plan
for it.
