Where does it all go???

Horace

With regard to horse riding, could you look for a cheaper stables? Or could dear daughter offer to muck out etc. in exchange for lessons? Just a thought, I know I used to do that when I was about 10/11. That would cut down on some of the expense.

firesidemaid

the other way to reduce costs is to plan well ahead.

eg. birthday cards and pressies, christmas pressies - buy as many as you can cheap/in sales/on offer throughout the year, including gifts for kids friend's birthday presents.

get the best deals and discounts on the things you have to buy too. spend lots of time of this forum, read martin's books (from the library).

have you got lots of things you can car boot and ebay too?

RhiBi

Thanks for all your replies, I think I really do need to re-look at things as most of those figures are estimates as I can honestly say I don't really know how much we pay for some of the things.

DH's pay went into our account on friday, he had an excellent pay of £3200 and on Saturday we had £300 in our account and all the above to pay for, so things have got to change.

tigerfeet2006

Another thing you proberly should do is open another account. Go through Quidco to get cashback. Go for a basic one with no overdraft or minimal overdraft (ie Co-op cashminder) Then get DH wages and benefit's paid into that. That way it is not being eaten up by the overdraft. Then sort out a repayment schedule for your old overdraft.

tyllwyd

I use a money software programe (the one I've got is Personal Accounts, but Microsoft Money is the best known one). I check my accounts online every day and put in the expenditure allocated to a category. Then every month I put the actual figures into my budget spreadsheet, so I can see month by month where the money went - we started off with £0 in our budget for 'children' expenses ... and after a few months it was obvious that we were spending more like £200 every month paying for activities, little treats etc etc. At least now I know!

RhiBi

DH's pay goes into our nationwide account. Most of our direct debits go out of a lloyds account, although a few are now out of the nationwide too

My child benefit and tax credit goes into our smile online account. I do try not to use that, but this year its all been used.

Does microsoft money work on a mac does anyone know!

tyllwyd

I had a quick search on the internet, and it doesn't look as if there is a version of Microsoft Money for a Mac, although there do seem to be ways to work around it.

RhiBi

Thank you for looking!

I am sure there will be something for mac users, I'll have a look later!

tyllwyd

The one I use has a Mac version
http://accountz.com/

It doesn't have a fancy display or anything, but it is quite simple to use once you get used to it.

RhiBi

I have ordered the program from Amazon, it was £14 cheaper there

I hope it arrives soon, and I can the try and really get to grips with everything!

No doubt, I'll be here asking lots of questions about it, lol!