The members of a family no longer live together as an economic unit. The children and adults are out at school or work, they are more mobile and now belong to a wider community than the clan and the family.
Although families are smaller they have become more distinct and individual, the position of the father and mother and their responsibility to the children has changed.
The needs of the modern family have changed–they are now many and more complicated. They now extend to other communities and groups, and to the future life and well-being of the children.
The use of money has enabled many people to get the things that they want, but every family must learn to use it properly for the essentials in order to plan for a happy healthy full life.
Early communities everywhere lived simple lives, their needs were small and they lived in isolation from other communities. They grew their own food to eat, traded by barter and had no money. They do not plan much for the future, and they were afraid of the unknown world because they had not the education, knowledge, or skill that we have today.
The responsibility of supplying the simplest needs of the family was shared by all the members of the family. These included clearing land, growing food, hunting animals for meat, feeding the family, and looking after children, the elderly, and sick members of the family. Besides being an economic unit, the family had many social and moral obligations to give help in times of marriages, funerals, and family festivals. All these things could only be done when communities were small and their needs limited. In growing modern communities, families are more isolated and spread out (due to better roads and transport), and there are now more individual needs. Thus, the family budget must be very carefully planned if they are to live well and get the best out of life.
As a general guide to budgeting, the income of the family can be roughly divided into three parts for spending: the house, food and clothing, and providing for the future and also pressure.
