Well, are you all rested up and ready to roll up your sleeves and get down to the business at hand? If so, reach out and touch the button below.
OK - so that's not really a touch screen button, but we'll still take your attempt as a "Yes!" Good. What have you accomplished so far? If you've followed the first four items, then you've accomplished a lot.
So far, you have:
See? You've made great headway. Good job!
Now, go to the nearest dollar store, Wal-Mart, or wherever, and buy one of those pocket-size spiral notebooks (3" X 5" or so) for every member of your family that ever spends money. Get inexpensive, retractable lead pencils if you don't already have enough for everybody. Write each family member's name on their notebook - use a permanent felt marker for this. Tonight, gather all of the family members (that will be getting a notebook) and give one to each (with a pencil).
Impress on everybody the importance of this task. If you don't know exactly where the family's money goes, you can't work out a realistic budget. Ask everybody to write down every penny they spend. Write down every coffee, soft drink, pack of gum, parking ticket, hamburger, etc. You get the picture. Where does the money go? You're probably going to be very surprised where it all goes. Have them write down the following five categories for every expenditure:
Do this religiously for a minimum of 7 days - 14 preferably. Have everybody keep receipts when possible.
We realize that there are situations where the small notebook will be insufficient. The notebooks are just for daily spending habits - usually (but not always ) in cash. Other spending, like recurring bills and shopping trips for groceries, etc. will be handled differently. Take recurring bills for instance. Bills for electricity, natural gas, heating oil, water, etc. can vary month-to-month. Some bills are paid on different schedules. Recurring bills and emergency expenses will be handled in Item #6, so don't concern yourself with those right now - we'll get to them next. For shopping trips groceries, etc. you are going to have to do some extra work. That's why receipts are needed when there are multiple items on a single expenditure. You will need to break them down into categories. When you shop, you need to separate the purchases such as groceries, cleaning supplies, pet products, personal products, clothing, toiletries, medical supplies, home maintenance items, etc. Why the hassle? Because, these too will ultimately be broken down into (N)eeds and (W)ants.
We know this sounds like a lot of work. It sounds that way because it is a lot of work! But, the rewards will be worth it, we promise, if you carefully follow these methods. And, as a plus, the rewards will continue long past the time when you become employed again. This whole thing can be intimidating at first, especially when everything is on paper. If you don't currently have a spreadsheet program on your computer, check into OpenOffice. It is a full suite of programs (word processor, spreadsheet, etc.) that you can download here - for free. This is all much easier to manage when you use a spreadsheet. We have a template for you to use as a starter. You can download it for free here, if you would like. It is compatible with MS Excel, OpenOffice 3.0, and WordPerfect's Quattro Pro X3. Our initial one is just a simple spreadsheet that will do the calculations for you. If there is enough demand, we'll build a more comprehensive one that will do much more budgeting and tracking. Let us know if you would like a more thorough version.
While this 7-14 day period is going on, go to Item #6 (recurring bills and emergency expenses) so all of your expenditures can be assessed when the daily spending data has been collected and combined.
Don't forget to make your required job search contacts this week.
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