Silly question about budgeting

getmore4less

Help_required wrote: »

I have very erratic spending behaviour and am really struggling to put up a realistic budget. Does anyone have any tips on what to set aside every month and how do you stick to the set budget?

I have set a budget for myself and have been keeping a spending diary for the last couple of months. I find myself fiddling with the budget and moving things around so for example I may have a going out / eating out budget of £50 and odds and sods budget of £50, if I spend more than £50 on eating out I tend to "borrow" the difference from odds and sods budget(or rather shove the eating expense to it). Is that weird? Or is that how it is normally done? (I am really sorry for being so silly, I had/have never kept a budget before)

Thanks

Thats normal.

What's better is to do a rolling budget over at least a year in detail, with a 5 year plan saving for the bigger items so there are no suprises and an allocation for longer term retirement .

All income is allocated, some to spends some to savings.

Then you work on a 12month rolling average for each catagory.

This way you don't move money around month to month.
WHat you do is monitor the catagories and if one is constantly over budget you adjust up reducing spends/savings elsewhere, this gives a much better picture than month to month and also helps make sure that you save up for stuff.

It also allows better comparison of the relative cost/allocations of income for making the trade offs of where you spend.