The start of the new year is often met with as much anxiety as it is excitement. This is especially true for those who have families to look after, and can be enough to cause a great deal of stress. Some of the biggest family expenses often go overlooked throughout the year, which can end up costing families who make modest salaries more money than they can afford to spend.
Once you have a thorough understanding of what expenses you have to look forward to, however, you’ll be well on your way to saving money. The more stock you put in learning about what the top expenses in 2013 will be, the more likely it is you’ll save throughout the coming year.
The following are just a few of the biggest family expenses of 2013, each of which most be taken into consideration.
Energy Bills
Energy is something that none of us could never live without, yet it costs us a great deal of money at the same time. As one might expect, energy bills in 2013 are poised to be as high as ever, which makes it difficult for certain people to pay their bills on time. One of the best ways to keep this problem at bay is to look towards tools that can help you to save money on energy for the coming years. Ohio residents, may want to look into Dominion Power in Ohio. Energy bills shouldn’t put you and your family in the poor house, and simply will not if you take the right route towards paying them in an effective manner.
Gas Prices
If you drive a lot, you’ll no doubt find yourself dealing with a great deal of gasoline-related expenses at one point or another in 2013. Gas prices are likely to go down slightly in the coming year, although the fact that they are above $4 per gallon in certain parts of the country is enough for most people to admit that they’ll likely spend quite a bit of money on gasoline this year. One way to deal with this problem is to simply drive a bit less in 2013 than you did in 2012. If you can walk somewhere, for example, you won’t have to spend nearly as much money on gas as you might otherwise.
College Tuition
There’s no getting around the fact that college can be expensive; many people actually can’t afford to go to college for this reason. Tuition has been going up steadily each year for a long period of time, and this isn’t likely to change in 2013. Setting up a special college fund is one of the best ways to ensure that going to college doesn’t become a difficult problem. Many people find that credit cards can be helpful for paying for expenses while at college, although this isn’t the best route for everyone to take.
2013 family expenses will no doubt be difficult to deal with, although they shouldn’t get in the way of daily life.
we alway sit down at the begining of every year and plan out what bills are getting paid out of each pay and the rest goes into savings then we also put our tax money in savings so we get a pretty good start but the end gets kinda rough right around the holidays
Our biggest expense is gas prices. My husband has to travel back and forth to work each day and it is about an hours drive each way. We have a truck so we are constantly filling up the truck. It takes a very large amount out of his pay each week and we need to sit down and figure out a solution. We either have to move closer (which I don't want to do because it is such a big city that he works in) or he needs to find a job closer or we need to get a smaller vehicle. It's hard to make decisions but something has to be done. Thank you for this good post. It has made me revisit our situation and we need to make some changes.
I'm lucky enough that I work in my town, but we do have to head to the city for groceries, but with Walmart right outside of the city, it means we don't have to go very far!!! And this year I am finding that both power and gas are out of this world. My son is to be heading into school in the fall and we bought RESP's for both kids when they were babies, so that will cover some stuff
All three of these are so stressful for my family. We can definitely be smarter in reducing our use of gas and energy to an extent, but it's an uncomfortable feeling to know that the costs are rising, regardless of whether we reduce or keep our usage constant.