How do you organise your finances?

Imelda

Hello all,

Since joining this website I have created my own spreadsheets to organise my finances, nothing flashy or pretty but I have become a bit obsessed with them (and they look like work so I can stare at them all day!)

I just wondered how everyone else does it, maybe I am missing something or someone has a better suggestion.

Currently I have
sheet1: mortgage, to show that going down
sheet2: bills account, what bills are due and when, grocery shopping diary
sheet3: personal account, budget and other spending diary
sheet4: savings and debt (hoping these will cancel each other out soon)

I have found it easier to separate my essential and non essential spending, so that I know I have enough money to cover all my household bills. How does everyone else do it?

black-saturn

I dont use anything as flashy as a spreadsheet. I just get a sheet of A4 lined paper and write down my monthly expenses such as utility bills, travel, food and things like birthdays and holidays. I add them all up at the bottom and then take that figure away from what I have coming in. So I am left with the amount I have to spend and the amount I SHOULD have left. Then I can organise what I am going to put into my savings account for that month.

Imelda

thanks black saturn,
I started doing that, but I ended up with about 6 sheets of paper!
How do you decide how much to save from what is remaining? At the moment I am trying to save a set amount each month, £180 for annual bills (flat maintenance, car tax, ins etc) and £200 to pay off my debts, I treat them like bills.

Chrismojam

I've got a number of spreadsheets too, but I have to say, for some time I have been a bit (very!) lax in keeping it up tho date!! Apart from the budgeted for stuff....all te DD's, mortgage, loan etc....the other 'what have I spent my cash on' has gone to pot....apart from the obvious things that I know I've spent my money on and recorded......the rest is having to go into the miscellaneous line for now:o

Currently, I have my finances2006 workbook which includes:

Income & Expenditure spreadsheet - split into fixed (home/travel/other) and variable expenses (food/other), the food/other is one line on the worksheet which feeds through from another spreadsheet which has the detail of type of expenditure.

I have a worksheet for cash, which I am supposed to record my spend each day, which is then input into the food/other sheet.

Contributions worksheet - calculates mine and other halfs contribution to the main bills/money left over etc.

Savings worksheet

I keep a seperate workbook to record my mortgage/loan payments etc.....I could put them all together,but I haven't bothered yet.

And I've got a 'personal balance sheet', giving the balances on my liquid/illiquid assets and liabilities....gives me my 'current asset ratio'....the higher the better....means I've got more assets than liabilities:D Got a way to go, but seeing it increase a little each month is encouraging....

Imelda

wow Chrismojam, it seems I am not alone in tinkering with excel. Good idea though I am going to make calculations adding up how much I have saved/ paid off each month, will act as an incentive.

Chrismojam

Before I got myself a pc about 8 years ago, I used to use a cashbook, listing all the monthly bills and ticking them off as they were paid....and keeping a record of what I was spending...

When I got my pc, I had the basic workbook type thing on there, no excel or anything like that....so I used to do a monthly speadsheet, which was basically the same as the cashbook.....but no paper!! wahoo....trust me, if you knew just how much of a hoarder I am ...this was a bonus!!

Then I got another job about 5 years ago, and it was dealing with budgets and fancy spreadsheets....and I thought that would be far better....so OH got Excel and all the other gubbins on my pc, and I set up the I&E spreadsheet....all the others I've added on after:D

all_hours

I've got 3 main worksheets.

One monthly income and outgoings - I like Chrismojam's way of splitting up the type of expense.

One with graphs for individual debts and totals that I need to update.

One that shows the cash flow for the next 4 or 5 weeks. I need to do this because money comes in weekly or monthly or four weekly for things like child benefit and some bills are weekly or monthly and the dates of DDs can vary each month. I've set it up so the closing balance at the end of one week is the starting balance for the next week so if I make any changes I can see how that reflects on my bank balance throughout the whole month.

Then a ton of messy worksheets with fiddling. Things like predicting how much my electricity bill will be based on the units used.

savingforoz

I use Quicken software to record things, which I think is great, although sadly it has been discontinued. However, the facility to do budgets on it is pants, so for that I use Excel.

briona

black-saturn wrote:

I dont use anything as flashy as a spreadsheet. I just get a sheet of A4 lined paper and write down my monthly expenses such as utility bills, travel, food and things like birthdays and holidays. I add them all up at the bottom and then take that figure away from what I have coming in. So I am left with the amount I have to spend and the amount I SHOULD have left. Then I can organise what I am going to put into my savings account for that month.

Ooh I do that too! In the third week of each month [prior to payday] I write out that particular month's outgoings [the incoming bit never changes! Sigh!] on a cool sheet of A4 paper and make sure I know what date each bill/direct debit goes out of my account. The final figure on the sheet is the amount that I can save. I save EVERYTHING* so there is no money left over to waste on shiny glittery pretty things that I do not need!!!


[*In theory!]

Chrismojam

See, now I think this is a sensible way to keep a record of things......my friend thinks I'm completely anal (ok that's true:o ) and a bit bonkers:o

Chrismojam

As well as being anal and possibly bonkers.....I am the worlds worst procrastinator.........take the day off work to 'blitz the house' ....and I am sat here at my pc.....very naughty!!:o