Family Finances: How You Should Be Taking Care of Your Money
Tuesday, August 16, 2016, 6:00 AM | Leave Comment
One of the most common causes of marital strife is issues over money. This can even occur for families who are in a good financial spot, but can be exacerbated for families that are struggling to make ends meet.
Talking care of your family’s finances requires that you get organized and share as much information about family purchases as possible.
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Follow-Up With Those Conversations about Finance
While some families will get together to discuss finances and set goals, one of the mistakes they make is to not have follow-ups. This makes it impossible to make the adjustments that would allow for a family to get its financial house in order. It only takes a few minutes to go over finances a second time.
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Personal Loans
According to Nasa Federal Credit Union, you and your family can take control of your financial life by taking out a personal loan. If your family is having problems with debt, this is an ideal option for a one-time borrowing need like debt consolidation. It can also help with unexpected expenses and allow your family to have access to line of credit as needed.
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Share Spreadsheets
One of the most-effective ways to have clarity with your family when discussing finances is through shared spreadsheets containing information such as credit payments to a loan.
Services such as Google drive will make it easy for family members to access the same spread sheet with a mobile device. This can give the entire family a full picture of the current state of the family’s finances and will make planning easier.
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Keep Some Finances Separate
Blend finances in a way that gives each member of the family privacy. It is okay for family members to have separate bank accounts, but mom and dad should have both separate bank accounts and a joint account.
The joint account provides some transparency and the funds in the account can be used for expenses that are directly related to the family and expenses that have been discussed. This can include major expenses such as a home renovation.
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Digitize Your Files
One of the challenges of making sense of finances is to handle the large number of financial documents that need to be handled. One solution is to have the documents scanned and digitized.
Then, they can be managed by a variety of programs. There are programs like FileThis that will download financial documents from financial institutions such as banks.
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Set Exciting Goals
Create exciting goals that your whole family will want to achieve and allow your family to input on those goals.
For example, to get your kids excited about saving, have a family vacation that you will save for and that they have input into. This will also help teach children about the value of saving.
