Budgeting!!

lazy&indebt

Hello Everyone! How are you all?

Just wondering, what does everyone find, are the best ways to budget for stuff? EG Nights out, petrol, food etc. Do you set out a seperate amount each week?

At the moment, I give myself a daily allowance which is working pretty well. i draw £150 at the start of the month and give my debit card to my mom and tell her not to give it back until next payday.
I then live of a budget of £5 per day (for petrol, food and going out) and if I don't spend anything one day, I then have £10 to spend the next day and so on! I only ever carry around the cash that I have allowed myself that day too so I'm not tempted to spend it all! £5 is a low amount I know but I only tend to spend £10 per week petrol and about the same on food.

climbgirl

I think you might get as many different answers as you do posters to this question...

The thing about budgeting is that if it's going to work and you're going to stick to it, then it has to fit with your lifestyle. I have weekly allowances for spending money rather than daily, others on this forum have monthly. As for what's included in spending varies - some insist it covers petrol etc, others keep it for pure entertainment.

You need to work out how your life and your spending habits work and draw up your budget accordingly. If the daily allowance is working for you and you're sticking to it, I'd run with that!

lazy&indebt

I definately agree budgeting is a personal thing, certain things work for certain people but I thought maybe there might be a few people on here who havn't been able to find a way that works and maybe they could get some ideas? it didn't actually occur to me to budget daily until a couple of months ago when I got the idea off of my OH!

Bunnie1982

I'm starting to like the idea of drawing money out that I will need when I get paid, I tend to carry my debit card round with me and then go and splash out on munchies

**purpleprincess**

I try and budget for a tenner a week, depends what I'm doing really. I try and budget for all things that I know are happening and then have my tenner a week for other bits, what I don't spend gets carried forward to the next week and then (in theory!!) I have a bit left over at the end of the month to pay mor off debts!!

hanspam

I take £30 out of the bank every Monday and then live off that for the rest of the week (apart from my phone bill which comes out of my account). Being a student though, it's mainly just food and washing money that I need the cash for.

Anything left over at the end of the week, I save up - the money will probably end up going towards my postgrad studies next year. It's only £26 so far, but that's after only 3 weeks so hopefully it will build up before September.