When planning your family reunion or other family activities, many of the activities you chose for your family will require some level of expenditures. In more complex activities such as a family reunion, family vacation or your family's overall finances, you will need to make a realistic forecast or budget detailing your financial needs for the year. Budgets are roadmaps documenting the amount you plan to spend, save, and invest each month and normally contain rows identifying expenses and columns for each day or month.

Cash outlays on various items like rent, food and housekeeping are shown as rows in the budget and are referred to as expenses. Your income is also shown in the forecast with a single line allocated to each source of income. Tracking the difference between your monthly personal income and expenses will help you find out how you are performing against your financial plan or budget.

Using a cash flow (forecast) spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel, you can work out how much money you will need each month. Your income can be shown in the forecast with a single line allocated to each source of income and lines can be created for each expense you will incur.

In preparing your budget, it is important to be realistic in predicting monthly expenditures. If money is tight in the beginning, you might want to lay out your budget in Excel with one tab for each month so you can track income and expenditures on a daily basis. I've tried using Quicken, MS Money and other programs for budgeting and, for my purposes, have found them too cumbersome to model cash flows and to closely track where things are headed in future months.

For budgeting, forecasting and cash flow management, I've found Microsoft Excel to be the best alternative since it allows modelling, can be configured to show the future impact of financial transactions today, etc. I utilize an Excel workbook with one tab for each month of the year. Within each monthly tab there is a spreadsheet with income/expense items down the left margin and the days of the month across the top. Income/expenses are entered in the spreadsheet and monthly totals are computed and displayed on the right side of the spreadsheet. In the Header area of the spreadsheet is a computed section which indicates a computed daily balance for your checking and savings accounts. I've used this format for many years and it provides the best view of cash flow that I've seen.

For recording your financial goals, determine and record your income and the dates you receive it in the Cash Flow Workbook (CFW). Include bring home income from your salaries, wages, bonuses, interest, dividends, Social Security, tax refunds, rentals, sales, etc. Be conservative in entering income for the future into the CFW. Then record your expenses in the CFW. This step is more time consumung because it must be done for every category of expense you incur. Your expenses should include fixed expenses such as your mortgage, auto loan/lease, other loans, children's education, taxes, insurance, savings, and other necessary expenses that have fixed monthly payments. Then record variable expenses like utilities, groceries, credit card debt, medical bills, repairs/maintenance, phone, clothing/laundry, transportation, professional services (financial advisor, attorney, etc.), and similar necessary expenses that have payments which vary from one month to the next. Then record discretionary expenses like recreation, entertainment, vacations, restaurants, movies, books/magazines/CDs, gifts, furniture, tools, sporting goods, cable TV, gym membership, charitable contributions, pocket money, and other expenses that aren't strictly necessary for your survival. You might want to group discretionary expenses into a couple of simpler categories like other or miscellaneous. By tracking your expenses for a month or two, you can usually get a pretty good indication of how you spend your money.

If you'll use the Cash Flow Workbook (CFW) as the budgetary foundation to your family fun and family finances, you'll see the order and assistance it brings in making your financial decisions.