Divide your cash into envelopes

tiff

Dont buy anything, use an old makeup bag, pencil case, purses, plastic wallet, plastic sleeve, any kind of suitable freebie or raid your kids stuff like the poster above lol

mon1o

right ive done it - well, sort of. labelled 3 envelopes: petrol, spending money and shopping (as in food!) is the idea to empty the bank account of any surplus after dd's or just what you think you may need for each over the month?? Sorry to sound stupid but you know, if you dont ask........

mon1o

forget my last entry - i have re read the first post and it says "all your cash" apart from dd's etc obviously. cool! off to the cash machine i go........

Em586

mon1o wrote: »

right ive done it - well, sort of. labelled 3 envelopes: petrol, spending money and shopping (as in food!) is the idea to empty the bank account of any surplus after dd's or just what you think you may need for each over the month?? Sorry to sound stupid but you know, if you dont ask........

The way I do it is:
-sit down and work out what's coming in and what's budgeted to go out, then allocate ££ to each envelope
-add up what goes to VP savings for things like car, emergency fund, next year's line rental, etc. and transfer that over on payday
-draw out in cash what goes into envelopes for spending
-update my spreadsheet every night with what's been spent in cash, and what's come out by DD

at the end of the month:
-leftover coppers go into a sealed pot, when it's full it's put in a coin machine and the amount is saved for Christmas extras
-leftover silver coins go into another pot to be used for parking change
-any notes or pound coins get put into our emergency fund, some going to start a holiday fund
- we do roll over any clothes money left, so that we're covered on a month where everyone needs new shoes or work clothes, etc.

vasseur

I use online bank accounts too. They are all linked to my current account. I have:-

Current acc
Household bills and mortgage
Holiday savings
Petrol
Groceries
Emergencies

I work out how much I need to transfer over on pay day to all the accounts (£80 petrol for much, £40 x weeks in month for groceries, household bills same each month roughly, £80 hol savings and £40 emergencies).

Every time I do the food shop or buy petrol I pay using my debit card then transfer the exact amount over from the relevant account.

It works for me and then I know that the money left in my current account is mine for playing around with

mon1o

Em586 many thanks for that its very helpful!! And some grand ideas (which i may actually steal!)

Im trying to save up any £2 coins in a jar i have £26 at the moment but its taking aaaaaages due to the fact that i dont use cash much therefore dont tend to get change........a pretty flawed idea at the time come to think of it but things are about to change!!

Ive done my budget with what i know we spend on things - shopping is one where ive been most generous given we are a family of 5 but its less than normal. why? because this way we will only buy what we need not what we think we might plus it will make me a bit more supermarket savvy. think i need to reappear on the oldstyle board! spending money ive been generous this month because the kids need shoes and petrol ive budgeted what i know i will spend. All in all im very happy with this new found way of managing money. Plus i have a tiny amount left to transfer to my new e-savings account (and it is a tiny amount too but every little helps as Mr T says!)

Sorry for waffling - im stupidly giddy over this whole thing not quite sure whats come over me ha ha! Thanks again!

Em586

We're a family of 5 too and I'm trying hard to save on food shopping (though we do fairly well usually keeping it around £250 and less a month) but we're having to go gluten free in 2 weeks time so that's not going to help with money saving as things are expensive! CCCS has been really good and given us a generous food budget, but that's an area I was hoping to save in, so we'll see!

I'm going to need to get shoes for at least one of them this month, and my husband needs new work trousers- glad that I have some from this month to roll over!

Good luck for this month! Let us know how you get on!!

mon1o

Oh i shall be on here for a while youll get plenty of updates ! glad you said you allocate £250ish for shopping. ive given us £200 and thought it might be on the excessive side but glad to see its about right.

TeamNicholson

This is such a good idea! I currently use an account for bills, and one for food shopping but I always seem to use my debit card for bits and pieces and never have enough left so I'm going to get a few envelopes or purses to divide up petrol money, spending money etc! Excited!!!! I also love the idea of putting the surplus coins into different tins to save for various eventualities!

Em586

I used to aim for £200 but ended up closer to £250 each month which was more realistic. I'm still hoping to keep it under £300, but losing cheap huge bags of pasta and having to buy special bread and lots more fresh fruit/veg/meat then it's going to be fun.... will certainly be back on the Old Style board for ideas!