There’s a great post over at My Money Blog which offers a very simple way to maintain a family budget, without the hassle that comes with some of the more complicated budgeting methods.
The basic idea is that we only put the amount of money we actually want to spend into our primary checking account, and then pay all our bills out of that account. Everything else goes directly into either a high-yield savings account, an IRA/401k/403b, or a brokerage account.
Add in an appropriate buffer balance to avoid overdraft fees, and ideally our bank balances should look something like the sinusoidal line below:
This is an easy way to control your spending as long as you leave the appropriate overdraft buffer. If you don’t track your budget enough to know how much you spend in a month, keep tabs of your spending for the next 2 months and you can start on this simpler plan once you know what to budget for.
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[...] pretty much common knowledge that everyone, including Octo-Mom Nadya, should have a budget especially when raising a family. Budgeting makes it easier to spend prudently, save wisely, invest strategically, shop shrewdly for [...]