Clean up those spending habits

Subscriptions you’ve signed up for and forgotten all about. Amazon deliveries. Takeaways. Coffees on your commute to work. We know the drill. Being on top of ‘everything’ 100% of the time is not as easy once you’ve entered the world of parenting.

While we can’t magically add hours to your day to help with admin, we can steer you in the right direction when it comes to your family finances.

Begin by breaking down your expenses into some sort of spending tracker. Whether you’re an Excel lover or more of a visual planner, it doesn’t make much of a difference. As long as you’re actually keeping tabs on your outgoings.

Once you’ve picked your go-to, you can start off by splitting your monthly income from your outgoings. A good way to do it is to divide your current monthly payments like your mortgage and your grocery aside from your savings and your total income.

A rule of thumb is to begin dividing them into three columns:

1. Your monthly incomings - including your wages after tax and any additional income you may have coming in;
   
2. Your monthly outgoings - including any fixed expenses like bills, mortgage or rent, and any variable expenses like a trip to visit Nana up North, or your family day out at Legoland;
   
3. Last but not least, make a note of your monthly leftovers. Make a note every single month of the exact amount. This will help you into organising your finances further.
   

You can now grasp how much of it you can save into:

• Your rainy day fund - to cover any unexpected expenses like changing the.....of your car or plumbing;
• Your spending money - for anything like dinner dates, baby’s clothing, or your summer holiday
• Your long-term goals - for topping up your pension, kid’s savings and your investments.

You now have a bird’s eye view of your finances. Hooray!

Ready to dig a bit deeper into your spending patterns?