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Day to Day budgeting - your tips please!

Dear All

I've read various threads mentioning 3 purse system or using MSMoney but what I would like to know is this - what little system works for you? Do you have a notebook and write everything down? Do you keep receipts? What happens if you dont get a receipt?

If there is a thread like this one already could someone point me in the direction of it - if not I'd be really interested to learn how you all deal with your day to day transactions - I'm interested to learn as much as I can! I've currently got a little notebook in my handbag and have been diligently writing down all transactions in that - but don't know what to transfer it into and don't know if a notebook is the way to go for me

Cheers!
Comps £2016 in 2016 - 1 wins = £530 26.2%
SEALED POT CHALLENGE MEMBER No. 428 2015 - £210.93


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Comments

  • Magentasue
    Magentasue Posts: 4,229 Forumite
    I use MS Money - I can't think of a time when I don't get a receipt. I keep them all in my bag til I get home and then put them in a little box. At the end of the week I enter them all into Money. I have an account on it called Cash and do that roughly too but I don't use cash much - £10 often lasts a month unless it's for a rare evening out.

    Then I download the bank statements (one for bills, the other for day to day) and check them against what I've entered.

    What I like is that you can make it as basic or sophisticated as you like. For instance, I break my supermarket shop into Food/Pet food/house sundries/medical/bathroom stuff and so on. It means going through every receipt but it means that I can see how much I spend on this stuff every month or over a year.

    This means that I can see where I can try and make savings - I've just drawn up this year's budget based on last year's figures making cutbacks.
  • Lillibet_2
    Lillibet_2 Posts: 3,364
    Combo Breaker First Post
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    I kind of do the reverese to Magnatuse. At the beginning of each month I allocate funds in my diary under 3 different budgets : Grocery, Household & Personal spending. Each time I make a purchase or a cash withdrawal, assuming it isn't a speical one-off purcahse from savings etc, I allocate it to one of these 3 budgets & subtract that amount from the available total. At the end of the motnh I add together the leftovers in each budget & trasfer to my savings account & start the new month from scratch.

    Hope I have explained this clearly enough to make sense?
    Post Natal Depression is the worst part of giving birth:p

    In England we have Mothering Sunday & Father Christmas, Mothers day & Santa Clause are American merchandising tricks:mad: Demonstrate pride in your heirtage by getting it right please people!
  • Nix143
    Nix143 Posts: 1,130 Forumite
    hi Lllibet - does that mean you don't keep a count of what's happening in your purse? How do you monitor on a day to day basis?

    Beginning to see there are two steps to my question - what happens to the money/cards in your pocket day to day and then how do you deal with that on a budgeting basis

    Either way - any tips, roll up, roll up - all needed and gratefully received!
    Comps £2016 in 2016 - 1 wins = £530 26.2%
    SEALED POT CHALLENGE MEMBER No. 428 2015 - £210.93


  • As my salary gets paid into my account I allocated it out to all the different headings i.e bills, grocery,petrol,car bills,general (including doc,dentist,haircut,pets), gifts,holidays,maintenance and FINALLY my heading spends!

    Each budget gets an allocated amount pre-determined by figures I worked out years ago, of course every April these go up, so do my allocations. Then this is what i work with for the month.

    Over the years I have been able to add to certain budgets like car bills and xmas, so now I am in the position of having enough money in those headings so when my car insurance, tax, mot is due etc or birthdays and xmas come round, I have the money there waiting and don't have to find it.

    Its like saving a year in advance!

    My spends I don't always get through so they get saved or used to top up a budget, woe and behold I did go over on a month, most unsual for me, but I have had an expensive few months with prescriptions, which I can't claim back for!!

    Does that help.

    Of course, I have my own excel spreadsheet, so I can see the exact amount of what's in my account and where its all distributed too. So in some ways my balance looks healthy, its all allocated out and my actual spending figure is way lower.
  • Lillibet_2
    Lillibet_2 Posts: 3,364
    Combo Breaker First Post
    Forumite
    Nix143 wrote:
    hi Lllibet - does that mean you don't keep a count of what's happening in your purse? How do you monitor on a day to day basis?

    Beginning to see there are two steps to my question - what happens to the money/cards in your pocket day to day and then how do you deal with that on a budgeting basis

    Either way - any tips, roll up, roll up - all needed and gratefully received!

    Hi Nix

    Sorry if this is confusing, I find my method a bit hard to explain but very simple to use!
    I divide up my money into different accounts & virtual "pots" for quartley bills etc (bless online banking!) at the start of each month. I leave my day to day spending money(for groceries, household & personal spending) in my current account in one lump (£260 in total) but divide it up under different headings on one page of my diary, I guess you could say I have paper purses instead of 3 actual purses : Grocery £180, Household £20, Personal £60. Each time I make a cash withdrawal or use my card I allocate that money to one of these budgets & subtract it from the avaiable amount, keeping the record in my diary, ie :

    April Grocery Total available £180
    1st April Tescos -£27
    4th April Sainsburys -£4.75
    So total available for groceries for the rest of the month is £148.25

    April personal spending Total availble £60
    3rd April Boots -£7.38
    3rd April Cash point -£10
    So total availabel for personal spending for the rest of the month is £42.62

    April Household Total Available
    1st April Homebase £9.99
    So total available for the rest of April is £10.01

    If I need to pay a quartelye or annaul bill, such as the TV license or the gas bill, I have been accruing it, a little at a time, each month & shoudl ahve the correct amount available in on of my online "pots".

    I actually spend very little cash & use my credit card for almost everything, I simply deduct the amount from the appropriate account & pay it straight over to the cred card the same day I spend it so I don't pay any interest, but I still deduct the amount on paper from my budgets in my diary. If there is any actual cash in my purse it is usually for a specific reason & I know what it is for.

    I suspect I have just made this even more confusing, if anyone else knows what I am talking about please feel free to expalin it more succinctly!
    Post Natal Depression is the worst part of giving birth:p

    In England we have Mothering Sunday & Father Christmas, Mothers day & Santa Clause are American merchandising tricks:mad: Demonstrate pride in your heirtage by getting it right please people!
  • dougk_2
    dougk_2 Posts: 1,403 Forumite
    I recommend Microsoft money too! It's easy to use but very powerfull and you can use it to predict various ideas.

    You don't need the latest version anything from 2002 onwards will do... you should be able to pick it up cheap.... Even money 2005 only costs £18.99 from amazon.
  • Lillibet, that is not confusing, that's bascially the principle I use.
  • Queenie
    Queenie Posts: 8,793 Forumite
    When I first began working with spreadsheets, I used the program which came with my computer: Works Spreadsheet. I set it up so I could list from the receipts what I had spent on clothing, newspapers, takeaways, gifts for the gift cupboard. If I didn't have a receipt, it would be jotted down in a notebook I carry in my handbag.

    Now, I use MS Money. I can download my bank statements directly into it, but, I can also have my DD's and SO's automatically entered each month so I have a more accurate view of what is *really* available in the account compared with what the bank has recorded on any given date. For example, it's no good me looking online at my bank statement and seeing say, £350 10 days before payday when there are still DD's to come out of that amount! If I look at MS Money 10 days before payday, I will get a more realistic figure (and it would most likely be something like £50!). Likewise with cheques, I enter the cheque number and amount when I write it out, but, the person may not cash that cheque for another couple of weeks before it shows on my bank statement, which would give me a false reading of where I'm at if I relied solely on bank statements. All receipts get entered into Money into the main headings.

    I think I'm going to end up running both spreadsheets this year though. While I'm happy to use my receipts to tell Money that I've spent say £30 on food based on my receipt, I think I want a bit more detail; so I'll tweak the spreadsheet I adapted in Works so I can get a clearer picture - especially now I'm getting into coupons!

    Personally, I have found that being a debit card shopper has been a bad thing for me - it's way to eeeaaaasssssyyyyyyyy to whip out the Switch, twitch and put it back again! I develop a split personality when it comes to cold hard cash in my hand and I'm loathe to part with it and think much harder before parting with *that* so easily!

    Alongside my receipts envelope on my noticeboard, I now have other envelopes. I have broken down my monthly budget into weekly amounts and (please do not laugh) have put the equivalent in toy money into those envelopes. I can only spend a maximum of what is in there. I do this because I use a Tesco cc for purchases for the point bonus' it earns me so using actual cash isn't going to work quite as well, but, I'm hoping that the act of counting out the money in the envelopes accordingly will help my mentality ;)

    The bottom line is, you have to do what YOU are comfortable with and have the time and motivation to maintain. Even though I let things slide from time to time, in the main I quite enjoy inputting the figures into the spreadsheets and have the calculations performed before my every eyes :D However, if noting it down in a book or a combination of both is better for *you* then that is how you should organise your budget record keeping.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    PMS Pot: £57.53 Pigsback Pot: £23.00
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  • Magentasue
    Magentasue Posts: 4,229 Forumite
    Queenie wrote:
    While I'm happy to use my receipts to tell Money that I've spent say £30 on food based on my receipt, I think I want a bit more detail; so I'll tweak the spreadsheet I adapted in Works so I can get a clearer picture - especially now I'm getting into coupons!.

    I've added categories in MSMoney - so when I go through my Asda or Lidl receipt I record how much is spent on food/toiletries/cleaning stuff/pet food etc.

    I've also deleted categories for things like a gardening service!

    If I get cashback, I do that as a transfer to Cash account. I'm thinking of setting up a virtual account for coupons etc. If I use them now, I just deduct it from the Food category but I might record this as a transfer to Pin Money account.
  • Lucie_2
    Lucie_2 Posts: 1,482
    First Post First Anniversary Combo Breaker
    Forumite
    I have a very straight forward spreadsheet with 5 columns:
    DDs & standing orders
    Petrol
    Supermarket
    Cash out
    Other stuff - takeaways, clothes, birthday presents & anything else not covered elsewhere

    I total them up over the month, check against bank statement when it comes & then I have a summary sheet where I record the month's totals for each category. I also record total in & total out of my bank account so I know how much "underspend" (hopefully!) there is each month.

    It's nowhere near as dedicated as some others, but helps me to see that my monthly spends are consistent. Also, logging down every purchase really does make you thing about what you're spending your money on.
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