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Do you get to the end of every month, despairing over your empty wallet and woeful bank balance? Are you struggling to make mortgage or rent payments, forever scrimping over the groceries, delaying bills and stressing over rising household overheads? There is no doubt that making ends meet is becoming harder and harder with every passing year. Especially if you have a family, the cost of feeding mouths, paying off your mortgage or making rent, as well as covering all other costs of living is an unenviable task.

For most of us, we simply roll haphazardly from one month to the next, just hoping that we will break even.

What many people don*t realize is that most of our financial woes can be helped with fore-planning and good ongoing management. In fact, many successful people treat running a home like running a business. The businesses that thrive and prosper are those that pre-plan, budget and forecast in-goings and outgoings. The businesses that fail are those that do none of these things, but simply roll from one month to another with no pre-planning, record keeping or forethought.

Keeping a track of your home finances is critical to stopping the leaks in your domestic budget. With that in mind, the very first thing you need to do is to make a budget with your partner, listing two distinct areas, *Income* versus *Expenses*. Your budget needs to be realistic, with all sources of income on one side of the ledger, and all outgoings on the other. Outgoings need to include all fixed payments (such as rent or mortgage payments, car repayments and insurance premiums) as well as variable payments (such as groceries, bills and recreation costs).

Another key step is ongoing accounting. By keeping records of what you spend and how will help you track your money and eliminate any needless spending. Too often households have no idea where all the money goes, so by recording spending over a course of at least three months, you will identify the *hemorrhage* and be able to treat them.

Keeping household accounts might seem a chore, but it is ultimately well worth it. Household accounts not only allow you to check where you are spending your hard-earned money, they show you where and how you can trim unnecessary expenditure.