Coronavirus family budget

Australia is dealing with the Coronavirus. We are seeing the impact and stress on the Australian economy, Australian business and employment. Now more than ever it is important to complete your family budget and cashflow forecast to get through this period of time.

It is not clear how long this slowdown or shutdown will last and how deep the impact will be. You as an individual cannot control the broader Australia economy.

What you can control is your personal or family budget. Especially if you are restricted to stay inside due to the Coronavirus, use this time to invest in the knowledge and understanding of your family cashflow.

Understanding where your income is coming from and where your expenses are going is extremely important.

As a rule of thumb, you should be aiming for a 6 months cash buffer. This cash buffer should cover 6 months of rent/mortgage repayments and general living expenses, assuming ZERO income for that period of time.

You can download our FREE family budget and cashflow 12-month template, clicking the below button.

Once you download the spreadsheet. Here is how you complete the family budget

1. Use the cover page tab to input your data on the Asset and Liability section. This will allow 1 or 2 person information and will collate the figures. Important to split out the assets to breakdown the liquid assets.
2. Go to the monthly budget tab. Work out your income and expenses. I recommend you pull out the last 3 months of your banking data (download to CSV file) and input into the yellow cells. The yellow cell will extrapolate the period (for example if you have a fortnightly expense – it will work out the month expense)
3. This will then work out the 12-month cashflow income and expense movements.
4. There is a formula down the bottom to work out cash reserves and the next 6 months expenses required.
5. If the amount is a negative, you will need to make adjustments on the expense side to close that gap or increase the cash liquid balance.

Please note this is all general advice and does not take into consideration your personal circumstances. Specific advice should be sought out specifically for your circumstances.

Jeremy Harper is the director of hfinance. hfinance is a mortgage brokering business, to speak with a Sydney Mortgage Broker, Gold Coast Mortgage Broker or an Australian expat mortgage broker — contact by calling us on 1300 928 227 or email info@hfinance.com.au.