Does anybody use the Piggybanking system?

compforus

I would like to sue the system but can't decide what to put into each account. In ML's article he suggests holidays etc but I don't think our budget even stretches to that much at the moment.

DebtfreeBY40_2

Just started doing it last month. I have my own account my wages are paid into, all my bills go from that. OH account for mortgage and the big bills. I now have a savings account on his account which will be for Christmas. A savings account of my account which will be for emergency eg cars. A totally separate savings account which will be for holidays. Another totally separate savings account which I am putting a very small amount of £ a month in, £10, for my Goddaughter when she is older. And then an envelope on my fridge with the monthly food and petrol money in. It is amazing what a difference it has made to my spending already! I know I can't just go and swipe my bank card and buy something I don't need. And I actually feel like I may be able to book a decent holiday next year! Rather than stick my head in the sand and waste my money I am actually making it work for me.
I hope you work it out, good luck!

MFWannabe

Hi
I have the following:

Car: An amount to cover all costs; incl insurance, tax, mot, service, new tyres etc
Christmas: If you put money aside then it doesn't all come out of one months wage!
Savings; To cover for any emergencies and to have a bit of a next egg
Holiday

These are examples; it depends on your circumstances and what you need to budget for

beanielou

Just adapt it for your needs..
Some people use envelopes.
Just what works for you really.

david_hellier

Plan a spending diary in 2011 to prevent overspend. The encouragement of overspending by the banks is the main problem with the economy, and they will look for ways to perpetuate this, for example by the introduction of contactless cards. The complete elimination of paper money is their long term aim so we as consumers must pay hawkish attention to exactly how much is available to spend.

One of the best ways to tackle this is to use the weekly subtraction method. Firstly work out all your income. If your income is monthly then divide this by 4.33, this will give you your weekly income. Note it.

Then work out your monthly essential outgoings, but exclude food (more later). Divide this by 4.33 to give you your weekly out goings. Note it.

Take the outgoing figure from the incoming figure. This is the weekly Start amount available to spend on anything else including food.

Get any little notebook ( a spending diary) and write the Start figure in it at the start of the week. As you spend or withdraw cash deduct it as you go. Try to get to the end of the week with some left in it and carry this forward to the next week and add it to the new Start figure.

Using this method ensures you do not overspend. I suggest you include food in the Start figure because the amount we spend on it can vary widely. My personal experience shows allowing a specific amount for food is impractical, however, it's up to you.

This method also requires you to effectively ignore your bank balance, because it is meaningless on a day to day basis. What you should see is it increasing steadily.

Also remember to include any OD charges, interest or other fees in the essential outgoing list, otherwise overspending will continue.

Other top tips: stop using credit cards for further spending and make FIXED repayments, never the minimum.

I have an excel spreadsheet which can work out the Start figure if you PM me with an email address.

rising_from_the_ashes

I separated out my bank account when I moved around 3 years ago so have had separate ones for the house/bills and for "my" money but I never quite managed to put any extra away.

I tried various tins/jars in house last year and always ended up raiding them. I tried a separate bank account and put around £75 into it each month and ended up raiding it (£75 mounts up too quickly and I was alway "oh, there's money in there" when I was skint at the end of the month).

Following advice on here, I rang my bank last month and discovered that I can actually set up pots from my account so set up ones for:
Car, Savings, Holidays & Pets.

Have managed to put a small amount into each one in Jan & Feb (only £5 into the hol & savings ones - but it's still something - and £15 into car & pets). Hoping the fact that I don't have a card to easily access the money will stop me doing so! (and also the fact that there will be smaller amounts spread out rather than one "larger" sum).

I still have tins in the house and am trying the £365 in 365 days (on track so far!) and a £2 one.

Good luck

Quenastoise

Have pots (separate accounts) for:

- long term savings like new car
- the September bills: the house insurance, car insurance, AA and MOT are all due in September so I put a little bit aside each month
- quaterly water bill (gas and elec are paid for monthly but it's not straightforward to pay SWW monthly apparently !)
- personal savings (currently saving towards a decent TomTom)
- Christmas and holidays

I also save in a way through the Christmas saver scheme with Tesco - Tesco save my vouchers throughout the year and send them to me in one lot a couple of weeks before Christmas.

I like the envelope system but I don't use it for food. Instead, I have a separate notebook where I keep details of all our food expenditure for the week. At the end of the week, if I feel I have overspent, I cut down accordingly the next week.

Doomcow

i do it slightly differently.

i save as much as earth possible from all wages into 1 savings account..

as for cars (mots / services etc) this comes out of 1 months wages, so in essence i dont save for it, but i dont save on the month i have it. same with christmas etc.

both myself, my OH and my joint account get 1 shopping each a month, and we get our own fuel costs.

karren

we have done thhis for a good while and find it really useful,. we have main account and off this we have

school uniform/trips etc fund
Holiday fund
Morgage over spend (yeh as if the money always gets used by end of month but hey i can dream!)
Car running costs
xmas savings
dd savings
ds savings

So we can save money in them but we have instant access, my son goes to comprehnsive this year so we have to use all the funds by sept i suppose but thn the costs wont be such a shock then.

It works for
us as once all the dd go out and the splinter accounts get filled we have set amount to use