Use this Home Budget Template to (really) make your budget easier (for everyone) to understand
If your family is anything like mine, it’s that time of year again. Budgets, setting goals, and a little wary planning for the coming year. Through this post, I’m sharing this simple home budget template and why it works so well for our finances.
Budgets - the word makes some people feel motivated and inspired, while others break out in a sweat and want to run 1000 miles!
If you belong to the second category - don’t go! This simple home budget template will make it easy for you to do a simple home budget in an hour - and as financial strain is a huge part of the stress that mums go through regularly, it’s a wonderful addition to the Peaceful Living blog - helping mums feel less stressed and more peaceful.
Through this post, we will be covering some information about simple budgeting, how to use the home budget template, and where you can access it right now!
Let’s get going!
Use this Simple Home Budget Template to get your budget organised. Busy mum hacks to help you stop mum overwhelm and mom guilt, and bring emotional health and emotional peace to your soul. #homebudget #budgettemplate #emotionalhealth
Use this Home Budget Template to (really) make your budget easier (for everyone) to understand!
There are different types of people when it comes to designing and sticking to a budget.
Person A might be all over it, and create a strict budget to follow, catering for every single cent.
Person B might be OK at it, and have a pretty good idea where your dollars go.
Person C I have already mentioned - they run a mile at the idea of a budget (or having to create one)
We will go through the Home Budget template here on my Etsy store (don’t worry, it’s extremely budget-friendly and will help you streamline this whole process!)
What you need before you start the Home Budget Template
Your most recent bill from each provider (electricity, gas, any of these regular bills)
Access to what you paid most recently for those annual bills, like car registration and home insurance, if this is how you pay it
A rough idea of how much you spend per week on groceries - or an estimate, at least.
A specified account to pay all your bill payments into fortnightly or weekly, to help you pay your bills and stick to your budget!
Note: If you use internet banking to pay your bills, this can be super useful at this moment! In most of these spaces, you can go to a search for past payments, and voila! You can see how much you paid, and when.
How to use the Home budget template
Step 1:
Open your home budget template - available here for just $4 AUD - because hey, we don’t want to blow that budget, do we? It’s in Google Sheets - grab it or the printable version here, and let’s get that budget organised right here, right now!
As soon as you have that open, or printed, find the last bill payments you paid on your rates, water, electricity, and water - and any other payments you make regularly.
Then, decide if you want to pay into your Bills account fortnightly or weekly. I’m going to share what I do for weekly payments, because then you can easily multiply by 2 if you want to - and this is like the baseline amount you need to survive week to week, right?
Step 2:
This home budget is built on the premise that you save a pre-specified amount each week, so you can pay your bills and start to lower stress and build emotional health - because again, that’s what all my programs are about, here at PLWM! This is how I work this out - and have run my family budget on for over 15 years, praise God!
Let’s use my electricity bill as an example. If it was $400 per quarter (which is 12 weeks), then I would divide 400 by 12, in order to work out how much I had to put away weekly, in order to pay for electricity when my bill comes in.
So, 400 divided by 12 equals 33.33.
Therefore, I put $34 into my bills account every week, or $68 every fortnight, so I can cover that bill. (I personally always round up those cents, because bills aren’t coming down as time goes on, right? The cost of living is rising higher and higher.)
Pop the number into your home budget template, and if you are using the digital version, you will find that as you do this for each bill, the total will add itself up down in the weekly total section, all done for you!
(Double check, though!)
Go through and do this for each of your bills - for the annual ones you will need to divide by 52, and fortnightly ones by 26, and so on. Finding that weekly total is super helpful and means you can really make better money choices for your household budget - and be a good steward of your money, too. It’s so important - and our kids need to know all about it, too!
Step 3:
Make it a regular automated transaction in your online banking service.
If your weekly total for bills is $500 - make sure there is $500 taken straight out of your pay packet, and popped into your bills account, the day after it arrives in your account - or even the day it gets there! It’s so much harder to spend your money when it’s in a cardless account - and whew, does this make it simple!
Having a separate bank account for bills, is also great for subscriptions, too - they can direct debit simply. Just make sure you allow for all those direct debits, those Britbox subscriptions (because that’s definitely a great streaming service for all us British TV lovers), and so on. That can trip you up, if you have subscribed to things you forgot about!
Life as a mum can be stressful enough. Managing the money and budget as well as the rest of our crazy lives - as well as dealing with that annoying judgemental inner critical voice making itself known constantly - means we can get a lot overwhelmed. If you want to talk to someone about life, overwhelm and being a stressed-out mum, please make a time to meet with me virtually at my Emotional Health Bookings page - your kids, and your brain, will thank you for it!
Also, disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor, or any sort of person who is a money expert. I am simply sharing what has worked for myself and my family. You are in charge of your money - and not everything works for every person. This post is not to be utilised as money advice, just suggestions!
Need to reduce budget stress?
Money makes the world go around - so be generous but know what is going on in your bank account, and keep track of your money with this home budget template for mums that should make life just a little bit easier - and your money last when it needs to.
Other posts you might find interesting:
5 Vision Board Ideas You Can Use To Reach Your Real-Life Goals & Increase Motivation
How Mum Guilt & Social Media Can Stop You Living Your Best Life - And What To Do About It
3 Mum Hacks To Help You Save Money At Christmas (or any time)
