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Set a Family Budget That Includes Savings

When you and your family sit down to set a family budget plan, savings might come near the end of the list. Routine living expenses normally soak up a great deal of a family’s resources and whatever is left over might be so miniscule that it won’t seem worth saving. Regardless of the size, savings are a necessity.

No one can predict when life will take a turn for the worse. We rarely ever budget for illness, a broken car part or a furnace that is too old to keep us warm in the winter. These are rainy day expenses and as the old saying goes, sometimes when it rains it pours.

When you set a family budget you should consider savings as a high priority. One way to guarantee that you will save is to deduct a portion of your paycheck before you budget with it. In other words, you can take perhaps 5% or 10% of your paycheck and put it in a rainy day account. In that sense you are pretending the money isn’t there and you can’t be tempted to spend it. With the remainder of your paycheck you can set a family budget that will tend to your regular monthly expenses.

Another effective method of budgeting for savings is to take any extra money you receive during the year and place it in a rainy day account. This could include things like year-end bonuses at work, or income tax refunds. If you take those amounts and immediately put them in a bank account that is dedicated to emergencies, you won’t have time to consider what else you could be buying with that money.

If resources are very tight when you set a family budget and savings are essentially impossible, it might be time to consider some cost cutting measures to free up some extra money.

Here are a few ideas of things you can do everyday to save money:

• Walk instead of drive. If you need to stop at a grocery store to fetch milk or bread and it’s only a few blocks away, take a walk. It not only saves on fuel costs but the exercise won’t hurt either.

• Take a bagged lunch instead of buying lunch. Bought lunches can add up to a fair bit of money over the course of a year. If you prepare a lunch at home, you’ll quickly notice the extra money you’re saving.

• Visit the library instead of the book store. Reading is a favorite pastime of many people, but it can become costly. Instead of purchasing each book you want to read, visit the library. The cost of a yearly membership is a very small fraction of what you’d normally spend on books over the course of twelve months.

By adopting a few small changes you can start saving money each month. It’s always good to be prepared for any possible financial emergencies and having a saving plan in place when you set a family budget can help with that.