4 tips for recovering the family budget after back to school
20 de September, 2019
The back to school is always marked by a greater financial effort, which can destabilize the family budget. Between textbooks, new materials, clothes, shoes, and adapting to new routines for kids and adults, bills can be last on the list of worries. That’s why we’ve given you 4 tips on how to get your family budget back on track after back-to-school:
Look again at the regular budget and adjust if necessary
Nothing like looking at the family budget to get it back on track. September is an atypical month for any family’s budget. So, to get back on track, we suggest you take another look at your regular income and expenditure for the remaining months of the year. If the new school year has brought with it any new changes to the household’s monthly bills (for example, a new fee for an extra curricular activity, tuition fees, etc.) this is the time to update the budget.
Calculating expenses
To help you with the first tip in this article, we recommend that you use the expense calculator. It’s an Excel sheet where you can write down all the fixed expenses – which you already know you’ll have throughout the year – as well as the variable or unexpected ones. You should also write down your income so that you can check your available balance. In this way, you can get a better idea of your budget in previous months and forecast it for future months
Use the shopping demotivator
In order to restore balance to family accounts after the return to school, it may be necessary to be more restrained in variable expenses. Especially when it comes to shopping. To help you in this rational process of weighing up whether a purchase is really essential, we recommend that you use the shopping demotivator. What this tool does is calculate, based on the amount you earn per hour for your work, the number of hours you will have to work to purchase a particular good or service. Viewing purchases from this perspective allows you to filter out what is really necessary. And experience tells us that this shopping demotivator does its job very well.
Opt for free family plans
As we’ve mentioned, one of the ways to recover the family budget after the return to school is to cut back on spending. In the case of the most dispensable expenses, of course. Therefore, one of the ways to save some money is to adapt your weekend, holiday or school breaks. For example:
- Before you go to the movies, think about watching two or three movies on TV that will appeal to the whole family, make some popcorn and enjoy the evening;
- Organize an afternoon of painting or photography (where the little ones can also make their own original entries) and take the opportunity to personalize the decoration of the house.
With these 4 simple tips, you’ll be able to restore balance to your family budget after one of the most difficult times of the year for your bills – back to school.