To budget or not to budget, that is the question...

Murtle

Here is an idea??

Nov Dec

Salary 1042 1042

Rent 258 258
Gas & Electric 15 15
Water 10 10
Council tax 36 36
Mobile phone 40 20
Broadband 15 15
NTL tv and phone 4.97 4.97
TV licence 3.5 3.5

Food 75 75
Toiletries 20 20
Cleaning 10 10
Prescriptions 30 30
Total expenses 517.47 497.47

Available 524.53 544.53

Debt 333 333
Remainder 112 132
Total debt repay 445 465

Rainy day fund 75 75

(any exess in the rainy day fund can be used towards treats/debt repayment as you choose - but chocolate is a girls best friends, cause diamonds are so damn expensive!!)

I hate the way it pastes in here, even after I play with it!!

But the first figure is for Nov and the second figure is in December!!

8pnoodles

Oh and well done for getting a better paid job. I'm trying to optimise my career by getting a good job in London that'll give me experience to g for something even better in the near future. That's the plan (and yeah I know, I never stick to them!).

Right, budget. I'm confused. You really only spend £60 a month on food? How do you do that? Guess freezing a lot of stuff. Having said that I'm not sure how much I actually live on food-wise, it can't be much, now I'm getting experimental in the kitchen. I eat the most awful stuff no one else would (8p noodles, value pasta with sauce and no meat cos I can't be bothered, really cheap burgers and stuff, you don't want to know!) but it must work out fairly well. Will add it up over the last couple of weeks I've been keeping my receipts.

But £10 for fruit?

Can you explain that?

And nope, won't have to spend on petrol.

My phone sounds awful, but that's two contracts, I get to cancel the one I don't use mid December, nearly there! Long story. My new contract is fab, I get 600 minutes to any landline or same network phone (ie. to my bloke) offpeak. So hours and hours on the phone to my bloke and parents and mates and it's all included. PLUS I get 1000 free texts. LOVE O2! This is basically the only way I can speak to my bloke when he's away (which is most of the time, he's in the middle of a 4 weeks stint away at the moment) plus the odd off peak phone call. This is more than halving my texting bill and means we can talk loads as without having to cut a conversation short because I can't afford it. Very happy. So the landline doesn't get used really, except the odd phone call during the day, which is rare.

So I guess I can try living on £210 a month, and the petrol money will give me some leeway. But I'll try and save as much as possible, and stick to the living on virtually nothing, and hopefully, perhaps have £80 by the end of the month?

It's a new month this month, got paid today, so we shall see!

Will keep you posted, so you gotta stick around...

brokenwings

8pnoodles
i thought i had seen you over on the OS board - if i am wrong may i suggest you do look over there?
£60 per week for one person for food alone is high
i spend £100-£110 per month FOR TWO and we eat NO rubbish at all - all good home made food.
i have gone from £425 per month to this thanks to all the tips i got over there - it can be done!

skintchick

It's £60 a MONTH. All the figures are for per month.

And it's not for food alone - it includes toilet paper, toothpaste, toothbrush, cat food, washing powder and liquid etc.

The fruit? I know! I have fruit and carrots every day at work, and allow it as a separate budget because I buy it fresh every day.

£210 a month is reasonable I feel - it allows for nights out which you need for sanity.

8pnoodles

BW - Sorry, I said £60 a month, not £60 a week.

Murtle - I like, no I LOVE the separate budgeting for toiletries and cleaning stuff. Makes it easier to see where your money actually goes.

But it's more like (as I only spend a max of £6.50 on prescriptions a month realistically at the moment):

Nov Dec

Salary 1042 1042

Rent 258 258
Gas & Electric 15 15
Water 10 10
Council tax 36 36
Mobile phone 40 20
Broadband 15 15
NTL tv and phone 4.97 4.97
TV licence 3.5 3.5

Food 75 75
Toiletries 20 20
Cleaning 10 10
Prescriptions 6.50 6.50
Total expenses 493.97 473.97

Available 548.03 568.03

Debt 333 333
Remainder 140
Total debt repay 473 493

Rainy day fund 75 75

And the rainy day fund can cover any really unexpected stuff (like my bike lights the other month and vets bills for my little fuzzbutts. The bills are normally ever only £20 max and they don't get sick until they are very old, in about a year or so's time so I should be ok!)

I like that so much I'll print it out! And I spend so little on toiletries (I now buy really cheap Tesco's own shampoo and conditioner, bubble bath and shower gel, and very cheap deodorant, and nowt on makeup) and cleaning stuff as I live in a shared house I should be able to save on these easily!

And will try and save on the food too.

Ooooo all excited and motivated again now. I am (still!) due some back pay, PLUS we're due a pay rise in February which means more back pay as that should have been months ago. I should get at least £400 and am determined not to spend any of it! Plus it should boost my income until I do move jobs.

Right, will see how this goes!

I have some money bags from the bank at home, will get out my money and write "food/prescriptions/toiletries/cleaning/rainy day fund" on them. And will see how much I have left on 25th of November.

8pnoodles

Hannah Tell me about it! We're going to hunt around though and try and get something cheap we can share. To be honest, from the letting agents websites it doesn't look any different to Salisbury where I currently live, so I'm not too depressed about it. Will make a firm decision on where to live much nearer the time though.

brokenwings

oops
apologies
must get new specs : /

skintchick

No worries, brokenwings. I've never spent £60 a week on food, you'll be happy to hear ! The most I've ever spent was £25 a week.

Bargain_Rzl

8pnoodles wrote:

I have some money bags from the bank at home, will get out my money and write "food/prescriptions/toiletries/cleaning/rainy day fund" on them. And will see how much I have left on 25th of November.

Hi! When you settle into a routine on this, and are therefore a bit more disciplined, you can ditch the bags in favour of a spreadsheet that itemises the contents of your bank account. Then, rather than having it sitting in bags, you can have it in the bank earning a bit of interest and much less likely to get stolen or "accidentally" spent

8pnoodles

Yeah might well do. Need to get into a routine of sticking to a budget first. And the visualisation of seeing the money I have left helps. I want to be able to go to the bank on the 25th November and pay in whatever is left from my money to go towards paying off my loan or overdraft. It'll be nice. Might stick my paying in book half filled out next to my bags as a reminder!

I still have no real clue how much I'm spending on food a month, it's going to be interesting to find out!

I am slowly ditching chocolate in favour of tescos value custard creams and my homemade biscuits, but I still need the odd fix!