AFRICA WORLD MAGAZINE | Page 29

5 steps to budget for

your family by Jacob Robertson JacobRobertson

4. Creating Table Comparing Monthly Income with Monthly Expenses

Calculate the totals for monthly income and expenses, subtracting the total of expense figure from the monthly income figure. As a result you will either have a deficit or surplus for your income amount. In case your income total exceed the total expense you will have surplus in your budget and it is positive sign for you and your family. In this situation, you may redesign your budget to include investments and savings. In case the total of expenses found to be greater than the income total you will have budget deficit and indicate that you are overspending your financial capacity and this could put you under debt burdens in the future.

5. Balancing the Budget

In the final step of the budget making process review all the figures head wise and decide which expense can be reduced or cut to balance the budget. You may also consider alternate things that you are currently buying to stay within the budget range. If you have

final surplus figure you may consider to buy investment and incorporate their income element in the budget. In this way the budget will be balanced making your family income equal to expenses plus savings.

By following the above steps you can easily create a family budget for you so that you can keep your expenses manageable and use your income more wisely.