Divide your cash into envelopes

Augustus_the_Strong

Great idea, and makes budgeting more fun - good luck everybody!

sexyshark

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?

Done_and_Dusted

I love the idea of seperate accounts and have just opened an online saver account in a matter of second with Halifax but I can't see how to open another one. Could anyone help with this?

kerri_dfw

re: car tax, if you put away double you'll save yourself ££ by paying annually

I've just setup a standing order to a separate b/a so I can try to only spend £50 each week, this week I failed miserably, but I'm going to try harder next week I've also just setup separate savings accounts as I kept dipping into my pots to cover for other things that were coming up. Hopefully that'll mean I know when I've saved too much for say car insurance, so will then be able to tuck the extra away into savings.

LivvyLoo_2

I also have 8 savings accounts with Lloyds bank, one is an ISA where I put my holiday savings.

I found the thing that works best for me is to work out how much I think I will spend on each budget throughout the year and divide it by 12...e.g for cosmetics, birthday pressies and car essentials. Then I put that amount into the pot every month, it takes a bit of tweeking but I find I always have money spare now.

I also work food and petrol out to a budget, I cover the petrol for the highest amount I think I need to spend on it a month and then now and again I don't need as many fill ups so have money left over.

Learning2Budget

joedenise wrote: »

I haven't been doing this recently but used to do it when the children were young but I used to divide every month into 5 weekly amounts and at the next pay day whatever was left went into a savings account for holidays.

It makes it much easier to manage the 5 week months if you're used to having only 1/5 of the months money each week anyway.

HTH

Denise

Aagh didn't think of 5 week month......fallen at first hurdle!
Will have to revise numbers and will learn from this for next month. Thank you!!!!

Dragonrider

I do an online envelope system too but have taken my day-to-day spending one step further. I use a free app called EEBA which allows you to set up virtual envelopes on your phone. It's really quick to add a transaction as you make it rather than having to go through receipts or statements later, and gives you a progress bar for the month. Best of all you can put more than one phone on the same account so both my husband and I know exactly how much there is left in the petrol envelope (for example) in real time.
It's really helped me and gets round the issue of having all your cash nicked!

Dragonrider

rising_from_the_ashes

Dragonrider wrote: »

I use a free app called EEBA which allows you to set up virtual envelopes on your phone. It's really quick to add a transaction as you make it rather than having to go through receipts or statements later, and gives you a progress bar for the month.

Ohhh ta for that:D - I've only recently got a "snazzy" phone and have been wondering if there was something that I could keep track of spends on as I make them! Will have a hunt around for it tomorrow.:)

Learning2Budget

I use eeba love it!!

Coco114

Sounds like a plan !! As it's yet another month where I have 2 days to go & ran out of money 3 days ago it has to be worth a try !
Going to try the giftcard for groceries & envelopes for petrol / dinner money & spends etc - am so bored of not having penny to my name last week before payday !
Thanks for a great tip