Caitríona Redmond: How to set a family budget to avoid a rolling debt

Plus my recipe for Irish pie

You could eat this pie still warm from the oven, or you could wait for it to go completely cold

How do you allow for all the costs during the year, ensure the bills are paid, there are enough savings for special occasions, and not end up pulling your hair out in frustration? I’d love to tell you it’s easy to manage the family budget, but it’s not. Setting up a management system will take time. I’m not going to pull wool over your eyes. My best advice is to put the time in today, and you’ll find it much easier in the future.

Pull together all of your bank statements for the past year, household bills, school bills, and spending records. It’ll probably take you some time so take a break once you have a big satisfying (intimidating) pile on your desk. Compile a spreadsheet of all your spending. Online banking normally allows you to download a “.csv” file to analyse and this is very helpful too. If you’ve never ever done a spending spreadsheet the first will take ages. The good news is that once set up it’s sorted for the next time and easy to maintain.