How do you put your budget into practice?

tiff

I was just wondering how you all actually manage your money once you've worked out a budget? Martin's budget article suggests setting up separate accounts for food, bills, savings etc which works out around 6 different accounts. Does everyone here actually do that? Now we've worked out a proper budget I need to sort it out so we dont mess up!

immoral_angeluk

We have a spending diary with different lists for food, petrol etc. That way we know exactly what is going on what and can keep track.

whatatwit

If it's for things in the future, like car tax, then really it should be in an interest bearing account.

If you register for on-line banking, you can shuffle your money around, so that only what you actually need is in your current account.

tiff

immoral_angeluk wrote:

We have a spending diary with different lists for food, petrol etc. That way we know exactly what is going on what and can keep track.

So you dont put your savings into another account, all your money stays in the same place?

joeblack066

HI there...yes thats exactly it. Some people use a spreadsheet that automatically deducts what you have spent from the balance, with one running total for food, one for petrol, etc etc etc........I do it on a word document and I always know at any stage what I have left in my budget to spend. That way I know if I can get the bargain, like a BOGOF without overspending! Cheers Debs :santa2:

cathybird

I've actually always wondered about this myself. I leave everything in one account except for anything long-term I know I've got to save up for (in this case a tax bill in Jan), and I find that works OK for me. But I've got several current or savings accounts of one kind or another, mostly with little in them, and sometimes I wonder if I could be using them more effectively...

tiff

My problem is I dont have Excel and the spreadsheet doesnt open with Open Office so using a spreadsheet is out of the window for me. I have 4 accounts with the same bank but only use one so I've gone online and changed the nickname of those accounts to Bills, Holidays, Savings and Food. I've just opened a Cahoot account as I'm claiming back bank charges so could use that for something like Christmas savings. I'm going to give it a go and see if it works for me, will set up standing orders into each account from the main one.

seven-day-weekend

For my UK house, lived in by my son and two lodgers - the lodgers' rent goes into my current account and is inclusive of the bills. I have another account for bills, I know the amount needed for bills each month and I transfer that much from my current account for the direct debits and then don't touch the bills account again. Any spare money I put into a High Interest Account and that goes towards things like repairs to the house, flights to the UK, credit card payments (I don't use it much so don't budget a monthly amount -just pay it when the bill comes), and other sundries. (My son also pays some of the bills). I keep account of this system on an excel spreadsheet and once set up it works fine.

We also have another current account with a different bank which my husband's Teacher's Pension goes into and this is what we use to live off in Spain.

We also have various savings accounts.


Edited to add: All my current accounts have online access which makes transferring the money between them easy.

yung

I use 1 main bank current account for my pension to come in and 1 building society account for all my bill, most of my bill is D D, I use online Banking to transfer money from my bank to my building society account.

chocolatefish

We have one Salary account that all incomings go into. Then a lump sum is transferred from that to a seperate Bills account to cover all predicted non-discretionary outgoings - direct debit bills, car MOT etc. This works for long and shorter term bills. The remainder covers more discretionary spends - groceries and food, etc. These two accounts are online and linked so we can transfer money easily between them.

We also have an online Savings account which we siphon off any extra money to. That keeps it out of easy reach as we don't have a card / cheque book for this one!

So three accounts works for us.

yung

tiff wrote:

My problem is I dont have Excel and the spreadsheet doesnt open with Open Office so using a spreadsheet is out of the window for me. I have 4 accounts with the same bank but only use one so I've gone online and changed the nickname of those accounts to Bills, Holidays, Savings and Food. I've just opened a Cahoot account as I'm claiming back bank charges so could use that for something like Christmas savings. I'm going to give it a go and see if it works for me, will set up standing orders into each account from the main one.

Have you got Microsoft Work Suits on your computer? there is a budget planner on there