article thumbnail

How to Budget (and Pay) for Yearly Bills + a FREE Speadsheet

Family Balance Sheet

Not sure how to budget for your once-a-year bills? They can cause a panic, especially when just one bill is into the four figures, like our property taxes or auto insurance! But let me show you how to budget (and pay) for yearly bills with a strategy I’ve used for years. property & school taxes – due yearly.

Bills 130
article thumbnail

How I’m Managing our Family Budget during the Pandemic

Family Balance Sheet

I have written often about the importance of an emergency fund. How I’m managing our family budget during the Pandemic: We pay ourselves at the beginning of each month, so when this crisis started in mid-March, we were covered for the month. Budget items we are temporarily stopping for now: EVERYTHING ELSE!

Budgeting 246
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

How our Debt Freedom Plan Prepared Us for the Pandemic

Family Balance Sheet

For many households, their finances and budgets are in limbo. Our emergency fund. I am totally paraphrasing the year, but had it not been for the money in our emergency savings, we would most likely have used credit cards to survive. We have hit uncertain times and this pandemic has felt like a wall that is unscalable.

Debt 130
article thumbnail

How to Start a Budget (and be successful at it!)

Family Balance Sheet

During that time, I started to budget for everything. Every aspect of our lives was included in our budget. When people hear the word budget, they think “restriction” and “no fun”, but honestly that couldn’t be further from the truth. Another way to think of a budget is a spending plan.

Budgeting 133
article thumbnail

How We Paid off Six Figures of Debt

Family Balance Sheet

As part of his baby steps, he does not advocate contributing to retirement until after you’ve paid off non-mortgage debts and saved 3-6 months of expenses in an emergency fund. Home and auto expenses are two big budget categories and by keeping these expenses low, we were able to put more aside to our debts. Groceries.

Debt 130