Family Budget Review – Quarter 1 2009

This time of the month I would usually post a monthly review of my goals that I had set for the month. For March I am doing something slightly different. As March is marks the end of the first quarter of the calendar year, I thought this would be the ideal time. to review how we are tracking against our family budget.

As outlined in Family Budget For The New Year my dear husband has created a spreadsheet for us to track our expenditure. He also helped me modify our personal details to create a template to share. Instructions on how to use the spreadsheet, can be found in the aforementioned post and you can click on the link below to see the budget spreadsheet.

Planning With Kids Family Budget

So far we have not been directly impacted by the Global Financial Crisis and I am happy to say that we have ended the first quarter with a balanced budget 🙂 .

Balancing a family budget can be quite tricky and it is not something that I always achieve. By tracking discretionary expenditure in this spreadsheet, I have found that I am more likely to stick to budget as I will take the time to consider the budget status, before I make the purchase. (As my husband reads this blog, I should declare that even after checking the budget status, there are times when I go ahead and purchase anyway, especially if it “was on sale”!)

Using a spreadsheet like this does require both parents to enter their expenditure into the family budget. To make this process easier, we have uploaded a copy to Google Docs. The Planning With Kids Family Budget with detailed instructions can be found via the link below:

Google Docs – Planning With Kids Family Budget

How has the first quarter of the calendar year been for you? Has the global financial crisis impacted your family?