15 Tips To Reduce Spending and Free Printable Household Budget Worksheets
Our set of Household Budget Worksheets are designed to help you with the process of setting realistic and achievable goals.
We are also sharing 15 tips to reduce spending! Managing family finance is at the top of the list when it comes to setting goals, especially setting goals for a new year.
My husband and I sit down periodically and either set new goals or review the success of our previous goals. The key is to have goals in order to manage your finances instead of allowing your finances to manage you.
Goal Setting Questions:
- What do we hope we can achieve as a family this year?
- How much debt can we realistically expect to pay off this year?
- Is this the year we will be forced to make major purchases such as an appliance, home repair or even mattresses or furniture. Try to be cognizant and forward thinking to prevent blowing the budget later.
- What does our savings account look like? Can we increase our savings this year?
- Will we be able to plan a vacation?
- What are some ways we could possibly increase our income?
- What are some ways we could possibly decrease our monthly expenses.
It’s easy to get either really excited about the possibilities or depressed upon the realizations. Let your mantra be “If it is to be, it is up to me”
If your expenses exceed your income, there is help.
Check with Consumer Credit Counseling for assistance with things like reducing credit card interest fees and debt consolidation. They are a non profit organization whose purpose is to assist you with regaining control of your finances.
15 Possible Ways To Decrease Family Expenses:
1. Reduce your cable/satellite package. Are you paying for channels you never watch?
2. Turn off your cable/satellite package
3. Drop the insurance on your cell phone. How long have you been paying for it and never used it? Have you read the fine print? It might not pay anyway unless the circumstances are exactly right.
4. Turn off your land line phone, if you also have a cell phone. Why pay for both? If you can save $12 per month, that is $144 per year you can apply towards debt.
5. Do not renew magazine subscriptions and don’t buy any new one’s either!
6. Do not renew club shopping memberships. Yes they are only X dollars and of course we can justify buying in bulk but are you over-spending when you go? Don’t renew your membership. Take a break and see the difference in your spending habits.
7. Learn to garden and grow your own vegetables. At the least, you can grow herbs for cooking. Those will grow on your kitchen counter. Also See: How To Use Milk Jugs For Winter Seed Sewing
8. Unplug any unused electrical devices.
Keeping things plugged in all of the time is convenient but those outlets are pulling electricity. When you add together all of the many things always plugged in, it adds up. I even unplug my Can Opener when not in use. Power Strips are the answer so that you just mash the button once.
9. Quit consuming alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are a major blow to the grocery budget.
10. Install a clothesline.
The dryer is a major source to your energy bill. We don’t want everything dried on the line but at least a few loads per month will reduce the energy bill. Invest $20 on an Indoor Foldable Drying Rack.It will pay for itself in no time.
11. Start Meal Planning. Stop making impulse purchases at the grocery store and start meal planning! It not only saves time but can save money also when meal planning around the grocery store sales. See our Meal Planning Pinterest Board for Ideas.
12. Take stock of your insurance premiums. Although we had been with the same Auto Insurance company for many years, we recently found a more affordable option with a different company for the exact same coverage.
13. Start using the Envelope System for expenses that make the biggest dent in your budget such as groceries and entertainment. Once the cash is gone from the envelope, the spending ceases until it’s time to refill the envelopes.
14. Have ‘No Spending’ days, weekends or weeks where you spend no money at all. Most people can survive one day of no spending but challenge yourself to survive an entire week. No stopping at the store or trips through the drive-thru!
15. Turn off the lights and TV when no one is in the room. You would be surprised how much you can reduce your energy bill by being more conservative when using electricity.
Our Household Budget Worksheets are very basic and easy to use. I prefer to budget the old fashioned way with pen and paper. As a visual learner, I like to see things written down so I can see it and not just imagine it.
The Annual Household Budget is 2 pages of Worksheets and pretty comprehensive with categories. The main purpose of the Annual Worksheets is to see how you did at the end of the year. Get to know your financial habits well enough to tweek the areas that need improvement.
Scroll down for the Free Printable 2 page Annual Household Budgeting Goals Worksheet
The Monthly Household Budget Worksheet allows you to quickly fill in the totals, subtract the difference between Income and Expense and see your bottom line. There is a space at the top for Notes.
Also Grab the Free Printable Monthly Budget Worksheet. Print as many as you need.
Also See: 7 Easy Ways to Reduce Your Winter Energy Bill Right Now
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Print the Free Annual Household Budgeting Worksheets HERE
Print the Free Monthly Budget Worksheet HERE
Great tips indeed! Some body gave me a great tip to reduce spending, while purchasing something ask yourself is this something you need or you want, if it is a need then go ahead and buy it but if it is something your desire then stop because there are no limits to wants and desires.
This is an awesome tip! I would have never thought to do that!
Family financial planning is not just about cutting coupons and denying yourself treats. It takes serious, careful thought and preparation, but the benefits are well worth the time and effort. And it is very easy and useful.
These are excellent tips, thanks for sharing and linking it up with Motivational Monday.
These are great tips. I’m going to try some of these.
Great tips, getting rid of cable would kill hubby but getting rid of our landline is definitely being considered, especially now that it’s basically telemarketers calling. #MotivationalMonday
I know what you mean about getting rid of cable. There are some viable alternatives making headway in the market these days. I’m doing some research to find out more about those options. We have kept our landline, for now, but dropped caller ID and Call waiting off the bill. Thanks for stopping by!
Great list!
I have wondered about the clothes line. I dried cloth diapers on a clothes line, but always wondered if I should do other clothes. I just wasn’t sure how much savings it was. Did you notice a large decrease in your bills?
Emily we had a 13% decrease in our energy bill the first month our clothesline was up. I’ll take it especially since it was on a couple weeks after it was up that the new bill came. I hang absolutely everything on the line! There are some really nice things that I hang indoors to dry. Anytime my dryer is not running, that meter box isn’t running up our bill!
Hello there! I’m one of your new co-hosts on the Merry Monday linky party! I just wanted to drop by and say hello to a fellow southern blogger! As well, love this post but have a bone to pick with not renewing shopping club memberships; part of my weekly menu and shopping trip guides, I always shop at my local Sam’s Club and usually save upwards of 80% off other mass retailers and grocers, including Winn-Dixie, Walmart, Save-A-Lot, etc. I’d love to have to stop by the blog sometime and look around. It would also be fun to collaborate on some posts, ideas, and parties, too! Have a great week!
🙂 Nice to meet you Misty! I look forward to working together at Merry Monday! We LOVE our Sam’s Club membership too, but it isn’t cramping our budget right now. If we needed to make cut-backs, we might have to consider it. All tips are not for all folks. I hope I will be back in your good graces with that thought 🙂 I’ve been an extreme couponer for many years. I wouldn’t dare shop at Walmart nor recommend it to anyone else either! I do love a fellow couponer!
I will certainly be over to your blog, looking forward to it!
These are excellent tips for saving money. Other savings ideas are to only do full-loads of laundry, turn off lights you are not using, group your errands together so you aren’t drive here and there all the time. Thank you for sharing at the #HomeMattersParty 🙂
~Lorelai
Life With Lorelai
You have shared some great tips for being frugal. Thanks Lorelai. We got accustomed to grouping errands together so long ago, I don’t even remember making plans any other way. It kind of makes for a fun day if you plan it right!
What great financial tips!! Thanks for sharing on My 2 Favorite Thing on Thursday!! Come join the party again next week!!
Not renewing magazines was one of the first things that I stopped doing once I quit working. There are so many ways to get free magazines that I would go back to paying for them.
I am horrible at finances so I want to say thank you for this free printable.
I wish I could hang my clothes outside. I would have to walk upstairs first. Then is a tree in the backyard which would be bad.
These are great! We are implementing a modified version of the envelope system as we save for our wedding. Thanks for sharing!
Now that’s really smart to use the envelope system for your wedding! It’s such an exciting time, it’s easy to over spend. Thanks for that tip!
These are great tips! I’m going to bring some of them up to my hubby – we’re gearing up to lay out the budget for his bonus that is about to come in, and guidelines are a must!
Great tips! I am really trying to work with leftovers this year. So far, I have done much better on our grocery/food bill just because we haven’t eaten out as much and it has already made a huge difference.
My mother was very savvy about using left overs. I don’t know why we are not all that way. My husband and I are doing a better job with it recently and will continue to develop some new favorites! We had some Hoppin John this week which makes great burritos with the leftovers. Thanks for stopping by Logan.
I’ve used a few of these in the past; turning off the cable TV. The provider for my area seemed to increase monthly and didn’t deliver quality programing. I did it for 6 months or so and was OK. Now that I live abroad, I have found a way around the entire costly cable TV thing.
I love that mantra! For so many things, I’m going to be repeating it to myself a lot!
I love these tips. As a grad student on a budget, I’m always looking for new ways to save money. Cooking meals with leftovers is a huge saver for me. I actually love my BJs membership. While I go through some things I buy there pretty quickly (like my fruits, since I eat them every day), other things I only have to buy once or twice a semester and I’m good. I can’t wait to have my own house and property so I can start a garden. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
These are all great tips, Shirley. My husband I don’t make any major purchases without talking it over. We save all of our coins and use them to pay for vacation. I try to never buy on impulse. I really like your idea of having no spending days.