Tips to Creating a Budget for Annual Family Photos | Whitney Beth Photography
 

Family photos are an investment. They are something that you'll always have to look back on and cherish. But like all investments, they often require a bit of planning. If you're like me and want yearly family photos you'll need to budget for them. I have a few tips up my sleeve for creating a budget for annual family photos that have worked for us. 

1. Figure out what you are aiming to pay. There are two ways to go about this. The first (and my favorite) is finding the photographer you want to work with and seeing what they charge and include in their price. Then you have a starting number to budget for. The second, less ideal but equally effective, is figure out what you are willing to pay for pictures. The danger with this strategy is that you may not fall into the photographer you'd like to work with's pricing guide. Then you're left to price hunt to find a photographer you like that can also accommodate your budget. - A better option would be finding out if the photographer you love does mini session days and waiting until they launch the dates to snag a spot. 

2. Once you've figured out the number you are trying to save for, lets say in this case, it's $500, divide that by the 12 months in a year. If I'm saving for a $500 session and putting away money each month, I only need to save about $42 a month to meet that goal. Totally doable!

Here are some tips you can do monthly to save money to put towards your family pictures; 

- Cook dinner for two days that you would've eaten out

- go hiking or something outdoors that is free 

- have a gift card date (find all the random gift cards you have and do something using them) 

- stay in and watch a movie on Netflix

- Skip the Swig or Thirst drink stop

- Shop 2nd hand stores

- Meal plan out your week

- Shop sales and use coupons

- Move the $42 to a separate folder so that it's not in your checking account - utilizing the "out of sight, out of mind" concept 

Those are our favorite tips to budget. Do you have any favorite ways? Drop them in the comments to help out fellow readers! Family photos are for sure an investment, but they are priceless! I can promise you that you'll never regret taking the photo.