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Making A Budget For Living On One Income
from: Karlie BestlerIf you suddenly find yourself a single mom and the sole earner in your family, getting a handle on your expenses and making a budget for one income can be difficult, especially if your weren't the one who paid the bills. You need to know how much you are spending each month and determine if you have enough money to cover your expenses. You could try to figure out your expenses and make a budget on your own, or you could get budgeting information for single moms.
Making a budget isn't really that hard and it will help with many of the fears of single moms. Start by making a list of every monthly expense your family incurs so that you will have a realistic picture of your household expenses. These are three of the major budget items for you to figure out.
Housing
First you need to figure out if your current housing is affordable for you on your income? Can you maintain your current housing on your own? For example, if you have just gone through a divorce or death, you may want to keep the house, but you need to figure out whether or not that is reasonable on your own. Can you afford it? Can you want to keep up with all the home maintenance and yard work that will be required? Would it be less expensive and less work to move to a townhouse with a small yard and little maintenance or to an apartment with no yard work and you are not be responsible for the maintenance?
Child Care
Childcare may be a new expense for you. If you haven't been working, you may find yourself having to go back to work. You will find that reliable childcare is not cheap and will make a big impact on your budget.
Car
If you have a big car payment, you may need to think about downsizing your vehicle. Big expensive cars can be very costly between the monthly car payment and the insurance. Sometimes scaling back to an older model can save you a lot of money. How long you have owned your car and number of payments that still need to be made are two big factors in whether or not you will be able to downsize.
Other Bills
Figure out all of your other bills. Once you know all your expenses, compare them to your income. If your expenses are more than your income, you will have to figure out how to reduce your expenses. Are there some expenses you can get rid of now? Are there bills you can reduce such as the cable bill? Do you really know how much you spend each month on groceries? Look for ways to cut costs and be sure that you know exactly where your money goes each month.
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