Your 'rules' for handling money smoothly - need ideas!

Jo_R_2

Had some great, lovely and friendly advice recently so I hope you don't mind me asking another question!

Anyways... My question is a general one. I asked a while back how people organise themselves with bills and whatnot, and had some great answers. What I wanted to ask now is, what 'rules' do you stick to and abide by that make handling your money work more smoothly?

For example. All bills (via direct debit) and the standing order for rent come from my account (a long-standing arrangement from when I was a single parent.) I have worked out (call me dense LOL!:o) that OH needs to transfer a weekly amount for the rent as he gets paid weekly (so ie, 1/4 of the rent each week.) That way we avoid the problem of the week before rent day = scrabbling around for money panic!

I have decided also that to control our grocery spend, OH needs to withdraw the appropriate amount in cash (at the moment it's £50 a week), and as I do shopping, that way I have it there, don't have to dip into my account, which I do regularly, intending to replace it, then always forget and have a shortfall. I only have enough come in to cover our DDs so it's imperative that I sort this out so we're going to stick with this from next week.

What sorts of rules does everyone use to make things work for them? Just looking for ideas, food for thought as sometimes things seem quite intense and hard work, then I realise we make things hard for ourselves even though we have enough money coming in to cover everything.

lilian1977

Hi

I do the same as you, all the bills come out of my account. I get paid the same day the DDs come out. Then when OH gets paid a week later he transfers half across. This is then used to pay my CC bill as the payment date is later than all the other bills.

We also put £140 a month into a seperate current account which is used when we go food shopping. This is the only time that card is used.

Spreadsheets with dates on are great as you can see exactly where you are at any one time.

Hope that helps x

applesandredpens

Hi Jo,

i cant be of much help because i need some solid rules myself....but just though i would say i am in the same boat. Im paid monthly, OH is paid weekly. I pay most of the bills out of mine when i get paid, but then each week we seem to throw away his wage! god knows where it goes!

i tend to write one list of things to pay from my wage for a month, and one list of things to pay each week, including everything from car insurance to a night out.

im sure other people will have much better rules! i think if you set up a weekly direct debit from OH's account to yours, for a set amount it should work! I tend to not dip into my wage at all now.....well this month!! ha ha

a

mrcow

The rules are:

The budget get works out at the end of each month with a spreadsheet that we add a new worksheet to each month
All monies are transferred to the correct accounts according to budget
All bills are paid by DD or SO at the beginning of each month as per budget
Our holiday savings are also provisioned for at the beginning of each month
I handle the whole budget and bank transfers with OHs agreement
Shopping is done via an online list weekly so we know exactly how much we'll spend before we even walk into the supermarket
We have a separate joint account that is used for petrol & groceries with an agreed amount each month
We only put £30 per week petrol into our car and that comes out of the food/petrol budget account
Any surplus money is agreed and split and I check our online accounts daily/every other day to check that we're on budget

And the main rule:

*We don't argue about money*
If one of us slips up, then that's life. We're a team and we're in it for the long haul. We don't have unmanageable debt or anything like that, but I take money quite seriously as we work hard for every penny and I don't want to see it wasted.

MyLastFiver

Keep it as simple as possible. Rather than your OH having to give you money for the rent and for the shopping, can't you just do a spreadsheet and work out how much in total per week he needs to give you, then get him to set up a SO for that amount? Then all the faffing about you have to do will just happen automatically.

Withdraw the cash for whatever spending you need to do in the week. Then you can see when it's gone.

Transfer monthly surplus to a savings account/ISA. Very motivating to see your savings grow.

Naarwich

Our rules are fairly simple at the moment. We have two joint accounts. One is where all money is paid into and the bills / DD's are taken from. We generally know the amount needed in this account by using a spreadsheet and monitor it almost daily.

The surplus cash is transferred to our other joint account. I then let my OH control cash through the account. She does the shopping etc and i'll ask her if I need any cash. This seems to work quite well for us.

Jo_R_2

Great ideas, thanks everyone - anyone else?

Tbh I don't mind doing things week-by-week. I think this would be a real education in handling money. I've never been "bad" at it, and have had principles that have worked in the past for me... For example when I was a student and working, I used to have an 'envelope' system whereby any cash payments would be withdrawn around payday and the cash would be split accordingly for petrol, groceries and council tax amongst other things. I have always found dealing with things in cash where possible makes me so much more aware of budgeting and at the time this was great for me.

Although I think setting up a SO for a monthly amount from OH is a more streamlined way of doing it, my worry is that as the money drops into OH's account each week, he will dip into it and then by the time the SO is due to come out, his account will be short. He's not quite where I am when it comes to being 'responsible' - he is getting loads better but does have harebrained schemes which never quite work out (the intention is there!) and end up costing us pounds that add up over the month. So I'd rather tackle it week-by-week for now, but of course may revise it if things do go well!

nearlyrich

We put a set amount into a joint account to cover household bills each month, we never draw out of that account it's all done by DD or SO. When we shop we pay half each, household repairs we pay half each, holidays we pay half each. I get paid monthly DH get some weekly and some monthly so it is a bit easier to budget for monthly bills. Like mrcow we don't argue about money either.

TotallyBroke

You could work out what needs to be given to you by him on a monthly basis. So say in wk 1 you needed £50 week 2 £100 week 3 £140 and week 4 £50 = £340 multiply that by 12 = £4080 and then divide by 52 = £78 make the transfer happen say every Monday if he gets paid on a Friday for that amount. Then you can use it as you need to when paying bills on a monthly basis.
One thing I had was all the bills came out at the beginning of the month but for a while I was weekly paid (am now monthly again) so that caused me problems budgetting. So I moved payment dates around so the bills were more evenly spread throughout the month.

Jo_R_2

Thank you again - anyone else?

Doomcow

yeah ok Jo_R - good topic.

in my household, we have a couple rules for sorting out the cash

paid onto own current acct, transfered £420 a month to joint acct, in which all bills are paid (monthly direct debits + £xx into joint savings acct).

our shopping bills are done on a "who wants to buy" basis, but its never like its always me or OH that does the shopping. we always go together and make a list so we dont over spend. occasionally we'll buy from the joint acct "as a treat".

our pitfall is chinese / kebabs. thankfully take-aways dont come from the joint acct (unless we are having loads of folk over). if we could cut these out, then we'd have at least an extra £60 - £80 per month (or more) spare.

when it comes to my own finances, i find that having the use of an instant access savings acct (in the same bank as current acct for instant transfers) is essential.

All wages go into CA, transfer to joint for home, transfer rest minus £10 to savings, and trickle/drip feed to current acct when i spend, eg i go buy £10 fuel, i transfer £10 from savings to current that night, or i go buy a shirt for £25 i transfer over £25 from savings that night.

Personally speaking, i live in a cashless society.

So no spreadsheets, we pay the same amount to the house per month and the rest is our own.

MyLastFiver got it right with the surplus money, but dont lock it away untill end of month 2 and the money is definitely safe.

my issue atm is that im moving from weekly paid to monthly paid - 18 days till i get paid and feeling the pinch! (i did make sure i at least had a months wages in the bank before i took the job tho)