Set up a family budget you'll actually keep

Not the spreadsheet you abandon in February. One sitting to see where the money really goes, one to agree on numbers, then ten minutes a week. Works for a couple, a family, or just you.

The steps

1. 1

   Step 1: Pull three months of bank and card statements

   Three months smooths out the odd ones (the car repair, the birthday month). If your bank lets you download them as a spreadsheet, do that: it makes the next step much quicker.

   30 min
2. 2

   Step 2: Sort everything that went out into a few buckets

   Housing, bills, groceries, transport, kids, debt, fun, everything else. Keep it under ten buckets. Any finer and you'll stop doing it.

   1 hr
3. 3

   Step 3: Hunt down the subscriptions you forgot about

   Look for the same amount leaving every month. Cancel anything nobody in the house would miss; you can always sign up again.

   20 min
4. 4

   Step 4: Agree a monthly number for each bucket, together

   Start from what you actually spent, not what you wish you'd spent, and nudge from there. If you want a rough shape, about half on needs, a third on wants and a fifth on savings and debt is a common place to start.

   45 min
5. 5

   Step 5: Automate the boring part

   Move savings the day after payday, before you can spend it, and put fixed bills on autopay. Then the budget is only about what's left.

   20 min
6. 6

   Step 6: Check in for ten minutes, same day every week

   Look at the buckets that went over and pick one thing to change. That's the whole habit. Skipping a week is fine; skipping a month is how budgets die.

   10 min

Written by people who have done it, not by Helg or any government. Check the official sites before you pay for anything.

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