Money Money Money

Today's world is consumed by thoughts of having enough, being enough and what other people have. Unfortunately we are quite focused on what we think we need. How do we get the things that we need? We get these things through having money. Because of this it can be really hard when a couple decides that they want to start a family. Rather than being able to focus on the family that they want to have, they are often forced to think about how they are going to make enough money in order to provide for their family. The mother often worries about not working because she wants to be able to help provide. Mothers struggle with being home for their children or deciding to work. Going from two incomes to one can put a strain on the finances but at the same time being home for your family is important. So how does one go about doing this? How does a couple transition from having two incomes to one? Hopefully I can share some tips in this blog that will help you to learn more about it.

If you have ever read anything about trying to save money in finances you have probably heard that it is important to keep track of everything that you spend. Well if you hadn't heard this before, I guess you have now. According to Michael D. Groote, it is one of the very first steps that one should take. He says that Step one is "Inventory, keep track of all of your money. "When he says all of your money, he means all of your money. According to Groote every cent that you spend should be recorded so that you are able to track where your money is going. It kind of reminds me of when you are playing a card game. One of my favorite card games is called Five Crowns, I don't know if any of you have heard of it but in five crowns you have to keep track of the points that you make in each round. At the end of the game you tally all the points up and whoever has the least amount of points wins. We need to do the same when we are thinking about money. Every time we spend or even receive money we should jot what we have received down. As we do this we will be able to see where our expenses go and what is happening with our money. Then we are able to move onto another important step which is to make a budget.

Making a budget can seem like something that can be really difficult to do. At first it seems almost inconvenient to have to keep track of all of the things you are spending. Trying to make sure you stay within your budget is difficult. At times added expenses arise that can cause you to go outside of your planned budget. A way for me to ease stress when I go outside of my budget is to think of it as a guideline. Yes you do want to stay within the parameters which you set for your budget, but if you go over occasionally (especially at first) it's not the end of the world. You might not stay within your budget all of the time, but there's always room for improvement. If you find yourself outside of your budget regularly, maybe you need to change some of the parameters you have set. You can also look for ways to motivate yourself to stay within your budget. To relate this back to going from two incomes to one I really love this quote that Michael. D. Groote gave, "If you are planning on moving from two incomes to one act as though you are downsizing immediately." I like this quote because it helps illustrate to me that you can change your spending habits before you give up your job so you have a bit of money stored up in savings for emergencies, but you are also already used to living as though there is only one income. It gives you time to adjust before you make the big change rather than making a big change once the deed is already done.

Anyways there are some tips that I thought might be helpful for this topic. If you would like to learn more about what Michael D. Groote says about it I will post a link for an article I read about it below! I hope you all have an amazing week! Keep making wise choices! Any thoughts that you have are welcome below! :)

https://www.deseret.com/2012/3/5/20397872/staying-at-home-how-to-downsize-from-dual-to-single-income