Divide your cash into envelopes

Learning2Budget

Food budget, clothing budget and fuel budget going very well. My budget has been blown again!!! Need to try harder and i think giving myself 20 a week would be a far idea! Might try that next week, cheers sunshine.x

jon557

That was a lot to read!

I think I am going to try this with my "Entertainment" budget, at least to start with.

I have a great spreadsheet - which I've spent over 100hrs developing in the past 3 years (conditional formatting, macros, loan calculations etc). I've got it to a state where I only spend 1hour a month entering data.

One of my areas is "Entertainment" and being a young single guy I like to catch up with mates etc, so this is usually £180pm but I want to target £150. So I'm going to give this ago.

I don't have 12 online accounts, that sounds like micro-management. I have these accounts:

1 - Central Account (Fixed expenses and DDs or SOs)
2 - Spending Account (Inc. Entertainment, Food, Shopping and Car)
3 - Fuel Account (All petrol bills)

This has worked well for me for over a year now. I also have an e-savings account, which I think I'll use to save for a deposit.

Just be careful you guys don't micro-manage it too much, you might get bored or fall behind.

OutofDebt-NOT-OutofDanger

Hi,

Like Jon557 I really don't want to be micromanaging everything and use this method:

1. Pay goes into account 1 (Where all DD and SOs are paid from);
2. A fixed SO amount goes into savings account 1 for all those annoying annual bills (insurance, car tax, etc.);
3. A fixed SO amount goes into savings account 2 for general saving;
4. A weekly SO to a basic account for 1/5 of monthly spending budget - this allows not having to bother recalculating the SO every month AND means that if the extra money isn't used it can go into a savings account.

In my case, my budget is £300 per month on everthing and transfer £60 per week for spending which can be drawn in cash. As the "allowance" for the year is 12 x £300 = £3,600 but only 52 x £60 is transferred there will be an additional £480 available at the end of the year - just in time for xmas (£3,600 - £3,120 = £480):T

Have used this since January and any cash left over each week is put into my "squander money" pot for those little treats that are nice to have but are not in the budget!:D

YORKSHIRELASS

I am going to give this a go this month. I do have a system for budgeting and I am a bit of a spreadsheet queen but over the last couple of months it has gone drastically wrong and I have been overspending.

This month I am going to try and live on £25 week for everything non-essential which sounds a lot in theory. However I need to buy ink cartridges for my printer which is going to cost about £20. Not as easy as it sounds is it?

I have 3 old savings accounts which are still open and empty so I am going to use these, will also draw some cash and put in envelopes too.

FireWyrm

I run something similar, but use a variety of mechanisms like this :

1) Savings account which is hard to get to (I have to phone up to transfer money out) which pays for Xmas. Fed by DD every month from running debit account

2) 2 x terramundi. One for general savings (£1 per day for every day of the year) and 1 which gets fed whatever I can with not less than £1 coins

3) 1 x locked wooden box which is my 'what I would have spent on cigarettes' fund and is my money to do with as and when I please. Currently £80 a month

4) Slotted locked box with 5 slots. Takes £20 - £30 each on the first day of the new month and is 'shoes', 'takeaway','groceries','kids uniform','other money'.

5) small locked box for any other notes. Emergency fund only. No exceptions. Only if we're dying. Key actually frozen in ice.

I run a daily balance App on my phone and all transactions are logged against categories with warnings which pop up when the budget is about to be breached etc. All DD's are taken care of on the first of the month except for 2 which I couldnt move annoyingly. Anything left in my account after 10th of the month is 'spare' money. I pay £2.50 a month to my bank for the daily text message giving my balance and last transactions which must tally each day with the App or I get obsessive about finding the missing pennies.

meow5678

Just finished my first month using an enveloe app online that syncs with my smartphone (EEBA).

It has made a huge difference to my spending and allowed me to really think about where my money is going.
Rather than budgeting by week I have categories:
eg. groceries (food/household), fuel, lunch (for work which I tend to stock up on weekly), entertainment, treats (covers any non essential purchases, birthdays, clothes, hair cuts etc etc) and cosmetics (I buy my bits and bobs from Lush and they last for months at a time but are not cheap so it helps to have some money put aside for when they run out, although I will rarely use all of it).

I'm managing to pay back the money I owe to my dad, save for car maintenance and for general emergencies whilst still feeling like I can buy the odd thing, provided there's enough left in the envelope.
At the end of April there was still enough leftover to take the bf to the pub for lunch

I feel this is definitely the way forward for me.

Candy53

You're all starting to do things the old way again.

When our kids were little my husband still got paid with cash. Seems like a million years ago. Anyway, I looked after the money. He would give me his pay packet on the Friday, and I would sit and work out how much to keep for the week, and how much to put away towards bills.

I ended up with my neat piles of cash, then I would go and get my jam jars, all labelled, and put the money in them. The rest for the week, went in my purse.

I found it so satisfying. Seeing and actually handling the money. Now it all goes into the bank, there's no satisfaction in it at all. It doesn't feel like it's got any value anymore.

Candy

camuk81

6 months in and this makes perfect sense! Need to do this. Already hit payday so need to revisit this next time! Love the idea of the app as I struggle to get to the bank and payback the money I have. Therefore it gets spent!

kiwikaz

sexyshark wrote: »

I have one of those budget cards for the car tax but having just decorated the bedroom I have now found £40 of post office stamps. Does anyone know if I can get a refund on them?

You may have already found out the answer to this but I thought I'd reply anyway.

I have £ 10 in stamps too. I honestly thought I'd be able to cash them in at the main post office without any hassle but, alas NO !

I was told that they need to be sent to head office by Special Delivery ! Unfortunately, I didn't think it was worth while in my case but for you it may be.

jon557

FireWyrm - you have a very unique system... But if it works for you, thats what counts.