Budgeting money for yourself may be hard, but wait until two, four, or even more hands start reaching for your wallet. There are many tips for the budgeting and stretching of your hard earned dollars for an individual, but fewer strategies exist for the budgeting of family expenses. Many a man has quipped about giving the paycheck directly to the wife, while having only butterflies, dust, and possibly a receipt for a soft taco from 1983 in their wallet. However, through communication and sound budgeting, a family can avoid financial disaster. As a matter of fact, money is one of the, if not the leading cause cited relating to marital problems resulting in divorce.

So, you like your spouse, but you simply can’t afford the Taj Mahal? That brings to mind a country folk song about “a high maintenance woman don’t want no maintenance man.” Of course, with a proper budget, and skills in establishing spending boundaries, even a high maintenance woman and a maintenance man CAN make for a successful marriage – it simply requires establishing a sound and sane family budget.

The main aspect of a family budget is to prioritize your expenses. After you establish a list of what absolutely has to be paid out of the family budget, you can dedicate the remaining portion to your luxury expenditures. Some of the required monthly bills that sap a family budget are your fixed bills. They include mortgage or rent, utility bills, phone bills, car insurance, travel, and health insurance. The remaining portion of your family budget, referred to variable expenses, should be divided into savings, entertainment, clothing, and miscellaneous purchases.

According to budgeting advisors, a family should pay less than 25% ideally for housing, and definitely no more than 38% pre-tax. Additionally, savings, a luxury expense, should be considered as a fixed bill in terms of your family budget. If you pay out everything else, you may find yourself taking a trip to a ball game at the end of the month with the money meant to go into savings accounts by your budget plan. Family budget advisors recommend 10% of your income to go into savings. Already we’re looking at up to 48% of your income gone.

For those religious individuals, tack another 10% to fixed expenses bringing the total to 58%. Add on the utilities, phone bills, car insurance, travel, and health insurance, and likely your family budget is 65-85% depleted. For every $100 you gross weekly, that leaves you with as little as fifteen dollars to spend. Assuming you have a family of four, that money further needs to be subdivided in your family budget to cover the miscellaneous school expenses, cost of saving for college (separate from savings – which refer to retirement), clothing, and having fun. For many families this is a challenge and the entire “fun money” family budget is spent each month on cable or satellite television.

So, assuming an individual masters the sheer miracle of juggling a family budget to put clothes on the backs of the adults and children, we find yet another item that must be addressed. Some portion of every family dollar needs to be reserved for some many family budget miscellaneous expenses that are not even touched upon in this article.

However, a prudent family budget includes money for true value adding fun. The cost of one months premium television would buy at least, if not both, a membership with the American science society or American zoological and aquarium societies valid for one year. With it your family could go to the zoo or science centers for free all throughout the US. Additionally, the money out of the family budget spent on a few months of premium television for many families can mean the difference between an annual beach trip versus a trip to Golden Corral once a year.