My experience in home bookkeeping

Today I would like to share with you my personal experience in home accounting. Accounting for personal finances has long become a habit for me, since I have been doing this for more than 5 years. During this time, I started all over again several times, completely changing the method of accounting, tried to find the most effective way.

That I understood during this time, and further discussion will take place. I hope you can bring something useful from my experience and make your life easier. I hasten to note that in this post I will not advertise programs or services, and I will only tell you about the general principles that are suitable for any accounting systems.

And at the very end of the article I made a small gift in response to the requests made in the comments to the last note. But first things first.
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Who should keep records?

Of course, this issue is confronting those people who have a spouse (s). In this case, it is best to have one common budget, even if each spouse earns separately. This is not only convenient for accounting, but also useful for family life (the more you have as a husband and wife in common, the closer the relationship between you will be). You can simply make categories of personal expenses that will not be taken into account (say, $ 100 / month for any expenses of a husband and the same amount for expenses of a wife), but keep the total family budget (take into account expenses together, make up the budget together at the end of the month, etc. .).

Our family was like that. Money has always been ruled and managed by me, as the head of the family. If the wife was spending money, then after the shopping trip (and it was not chaotic and constant, but planned), she simply reported to me about the expenses, and I contributed them to the program. With the growth of our incomes, accounting has changed a little, I no longer ask her what she bought and at what price, this is not so important (the other is more important now, but more on that below).

What and why should be considered?

A lot of controversy is going on what to consider, what not to consider. Whether to record all expenses, if so, how much detail, etc., I began to keep home accounting when my income was small (slightly above the average in the city). And I wrote down all expenses in great detail. I divided the categories into subcategories, wrote everything down to the smallest detail. That is, my account was as detailed as possible. This greatly helped to identify the smallest "holes" in the family budget and good savings.

As it was said a little earlier, the wife came from the store (if only she went to the store) and was accountable for the expenses incurred. Of course, the word "accountable" should not sound somehow rude, it was not justified before me for the expenses incurred, but simply stated the facts. There are no disputes, like: “Why did you buy another bag of milk if yesterday’s package is in the fridge?” Or “Why did you buy cheese for such a sum? After all, there are much cheaper! We will never save anything like that! ”Etc. If you start having such a showdown, it is better to abandon your financial records at all, rather than destroy the relationship.

With the growth of income, the detailing was lost more and more. When I spoke with my acquaintance 4 years ago (he was already a multimillionaire at that time, he had factories, a car company, networks of various stores), he answered me: “I don’t understand why I need to record something somewhere? I do not have such a case when I would like to buy something, or I just need to pay for something, but there is no money. Why save, spend time and effort on cost accounting, when I physically can not spend all the money? ". Then I tried to prove something to him, to explain, but now I understand him. I am sure that if my income is even greater, my cost accounting will change even more (in the direction of its absence).

What does my accounting look like today, or why do I need home accounting?

Now I don’t write everything down to the smallest detail, taking into account certain expenses doesn’t make much sense at all (like gasoline for a car, since no matter how much I spend on gasoline, I won’t save on this and travel by public transport except occasionally for good bike and just for fun, not to save).

At the moment, it’s not so important for me to know, WHERE the money has gone (for 5 years of permanent accounting, I already know perfectly well where and how much my money goes), how important it is to know HOW MUCH I have money now. And that is exactly what I am doing.

I open the program (or some service, it doesn’t matter) and I see all my assets and liabilities. I know perfectly well how much money I have now (and this is not so easy in the modern world, where a person can have a lot of cards, credit cards, Internet money, deposits, shares, debts, etc.).

If you need to make some expense, I can see very easily how this expense will affect my future, if I can afford it. Every month I quickly draw up a budget (I copy from the previous month and make changes as necessary). Having made a budget in 5 minutes, I immediately orientated and realized that I could not worry about the current month - all expenses will be covered in any case, regardless of whether I will take them into account in detail, or not, whether I will save or not ( within reasonable limits).

Summing up

From my 5 years experience in daily housekeeping I would recommend the following:

1. The less your income, the more seriously you need to treat every waste and keep the most rigid and complete accounting.
2. As income grows, the detail of accounting can be weakened by focusing on how much and where you have money, rather than on where they go. And be sure to draw conclusions (if you are full of debts and there is no investment, then you are doing something wrong). It is even possible to record such various expenses as bread and washing powder with just one sum - household expenses, or mandatory expenses and the like.
3. The budget should be made almost every month, no matter how long you manage your finances, or how much you earn. This is an excellent remedy for financial worries and unpleasant surprises.
4. It is always important to remember, no matter how much you save, you can become rich much faster by increasing your income. Spend less time detailed and meticulous accounting of every penny and think more about how to increase their income.

I really hope that my experience described above will be useful to someone in my personal life!

Small gift

My first post on Habré, which I wrote a couple of days ago, aroused comparatively great interest from Habra’s readers (more than 200 comments, more than 100 votes, and about 70 users who added the post to their favorites). I was very pleased to see such an interest. And so, in the comments, people reproached me, they say, this is not done - just telling Habré about their products, so make some kind of gift.

I decided to do the following. For all readers of Habra by the end of this week (on the 7th number inclusive), we offer a 50% discount on our software product Family 10 Pro. All information about the program (you can also download a demo version for free) can be found on the program's website: www.sanuel.com/ru/family , you can also buy it there (or here is the direct link: allsoft.ru/abasket.php?tm= 1288811338 ). When ordering, you need to specify the HABRA series and the number 2010, as in the screenshot:



How do you manage your finances? What can you advise in this regard?