Budgetting Tips

leni

OH is now willing to sit down with me and workout our budget:T

So tonight we will be sat down with the laptop sorting our budget in excel!

Does anyone have any tips?

List of things to include i.e. I always forget hairdressers, birthdays etc!

Lucie_2

Have a look at the Budget planner at the top of the page (in the blue bar). That lists just about everything you can think of, and also helps you out with things you pay for weekly or annually, instead of monthly.
You can download it to your laptop & it works it all out for you.
Good luck!

john_kent

I get paid on 29th monthly and pay all creditors on the 1st or 2nd. That way , if there are any unforseen expenses during the month , I cannot pay them. Creditors first.

Budget relistically for the car. I have and it worked. I pit 10.50 aside for road tax and 20 aside per month for maintenance. i also do all minor servicing parts myself (plugs , filters etc).

Bidget yearley for bills like hous einsurance , car insurance. Monthly for things you must buy each month.

Imelda

hi Leni,

Other things that I forgot to include first off were:
dentist,
travel insurance (if you're going away)
xmas, I had saved for presents but not the extra socialising, food, travel etc
dry cleaning/ shoe repairs etc- I work in an office so have to do this on a regular basis, I usually save up and get my suits done in bulk to save money

leni

Thanks everyone, I'v been trying to budget for a while, I made sure all the DD came out within 1 weeks of getting paid and reduced as many bills as possible but OH wasn't helping and I'd check the bank account to see £xx ammount gone. We also would pop into the supermarket for one thing and spend £20+

We want September to be a good month and then we go away for 2 weeks in October and OH gets paid twice that month so we want to get the CC below £3k by November

_s79

that budget sheet is crazy... it has loads of things that I would have forgotten to calculate. Its frightening how much we spend on rubbish

msmicawber

Don't forget to always round figures up and if you're budgeting for e.g. next year's car tax assume that it will be more expensive next year.

leni

msmicawber wrote:

Don't forget to always round figures up and if you're budgeting for e.g. next year's car tax assume that it will be more expensive next year.

msmicawber - well done on DEBT FREENESS!:T

msmicawber

Thank you very much - I've got to say I owe it to getting to grips with budgeting, so you're doing the right thing.

kathfisch

Do you keep a spending diary? Obviously that's needed to keep track of whether you're sticking to your budget etc and it'll show up if there are any categories you've forgotten. Don't forget the little things that don't seem to fit into any category - things like selotape and envelopes never seem to have a category in my budgets perhaps I should add a stationery category

leni

I tried a spending budget but I stopped because OH was just spending and spending and spending so I stopped!

I'm gonna keep our cash cards at home and only use them when we need petrol and cash out (gonna give us a £20 a week budget each) and converting to doing shopping online because we buy so much unecessary stuff that doesn't get used!

We're also meal planning for the next week!

fun and games tonight - loads of bickering expected!