How to save on home expenses with a little organization
Getting to the end of the month requires more and more cunning, on the one hand, and a spirit of sacrifice on the other.
But to save you don't need to spend “less”. It is often enough to spend "better". Where to start? We must first understand what our "budget" is. If we do not know how much we could spend and what our fixed expenses are, we will hardly reach the end of the month with a few coins in our pockets.
Making a "budget" for family expenses is much simpler than it seems. All the data to compile it are in fact at your disposal. You are the head of your "family business" and you will not have to chase offices and departments to have the missing data sent to you, here are also some tips to save, look:
1. Calculate your revenue
To calculate the total, you need to add up the income of all family members. Are the children already contributing to the household expenses? Then you will also have to count their monthly contribution; if they have a fixed-term contract or a precarious job, only calculate the sums expected up to the expiry date of their commitment.
At the end, add non-working income such as those resulting from the rental of an apartment you own.
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2. Calculate the expenses
And here's the hardest thing. Calculate the expenses. You should use an Excel spreadsheet from your computer to have all the data under control. Divide the sheet into approximately 15-18 boxes horizontally corresponding to the various items of expenditure. Vertically, however, you will have to provide twelve boxes corresponding to the months of the year. Write down the expense items, you will have to enter for each month the data relating to:
- mortgage / rent
- food and house cleaning expenses
- taxes and house expenses: if the property is your property, enter, in addition to condominium expenses, taxes, any domestic help (maids and carers), etc.
- bills: rai fee, telephone, electricity, gas, water, waste ...
- bank and insurance: current account fee and any accident and life insurance policies ...
- car, motorbike, camper or caravan: road tax, insurance, petrol (possible caravan storage)
- school: books, notebooks, trips and extra material, tuition
- - sports and health: gyms and swimming pools, treatment packages, spas, dentist, medical visits
- -fun
- transport: season tickets or bus / train tickets
- clothing
- vacation
- unexpected events
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3. Calculate the possible savings margin
Once you have calculated the monthly total of income and the monthly total of expenses, you just have to do the subtraction to understand what your real saving capacity will be. The table will help you figure out which of these expenses you can try to reduce to make ends meet. The more boxes you draw, the more expense items will be under your control. It is up to you to decide whether to divide the item "sport and health" into two separate boxes to keep an eye on the expenses, for example, of the dentist. Do not forget to include the unexpected item in the budget: it is your rescue anchor in all those situations that require immediate expenditure (shutter breakage and unfortunately much more!).
4. Download an App to save
Another way to keep expenses under control, in addition to the use of special devices at home, would be to use one of the many mobile apps. Today there are several useful for controlling expenses with a simple click. Downloadable by indexing them in the store under the Finance category, there are some that have now become famous, useful for comparing year by year how much you earn and how much you spend, including: Mint, Cets, Card, Money Wiz, Monefy and so on.
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Saving at home? You can also do this by saving on the expenses for detergents, how? That's how:
