help with how to budget please

full_house

any suggestions welcome...
We are finding it hard to stick to a budget as money is going into the account at different times, bills come out at different frequencies,and we are getting in a muddle and constantly robbing peter to pay paul!
OH gets paid weekly
I get paid monthly but not on a specific date
ctc is four weekly
wtc is weekly
cb is four weekly.

at the moment we tend to try to do the following,but without real success..
OH wages do food,petrol,gas ,electric
my wages do debt payments,extra expenses
ctc does mortgage,life ins,house ins,car ins,council tax,water rates,
wtc does tv licence and phone/internet
cb does a big freezer shop once a month and extra bills.

chaos really, so any ideas to make this a bit easier?
I keep a running record of bank balance ,updated each time we spend any money,so always know how much/little!! is in account

brummiebabe

Might be helpful to put down the amounts you get.....I would use the weekly money for food shopping, petrol etc...but how you plan it very much depends on how much you get, when & what your normal monthly costs are.....

I'm sure there will be a way that will work...but think we need a bit more information first.

Good luck

psychopathbabble

Probably the easiest way is the 'pots' system. Open another bank account for house bills, and move money from each income to cover them. Open savings accounts or bank accounts for debt payments, one for food shopping, one for anything that is potentially left over.

Create a simple spreadsheet with your incomes each month at the top, and bills etc down the side with the amounts for each month. That way you can keep track of what you need in each bank account.

niccatw

Is it all going in and out of one bank account? I have three bank accounts. My pay goes into one and I syphon off most of it into my "bills" account and I've changed the dates of all the d/ds I possibly could so they fit when money will be there. The other account is for food diesel etc and anything left in the account that my pay goes into is for debt repayment. It took a lot of setting up and was fiddly at the start but now it's so much easier for me.
I know plenty of people who are even more hardcore and have many more accounts for different things!

opinions4u

A bills account that all the direct debits and standing orders go out of would probably help.

You don't use debit cards or cheque books on this account. You just make sure that what you pay in to it will be more than the total sum of the bills. If in doubt, round everything up to £10 above and calculate how much needs to go in to it that way.

e.g. £12.99 = £20. £138.40 = £140 and so on.

Then add a 10% contingency on top of it - so if your total standing orders and direct debits come to £800 make sure £880 goes in to this account.

Additionally, make sure the balance never falls below a set level. Monitor online (use text alerts if your bank offers them). I always keep £100 minimum in mine to make sure bank charges and overdraft costs are avoided.

You should end up with a surplus in it. That can help toward Christmas - the rule being you can only withdraw anything at that time of year.

Money for spend (e.g. cash and debit card) such as the freezer shop etc should live in your own personal accounts.

There are loads of different ways of approaching it, this is just one. It works for me.

My double rounding approach helps with saving - if money is really tight then don't add on the extra 10% I suggest. But make sure you fund the account with extra every time a bill goes up. If a bill falls, leave things as they are,

I'd get all the benefits paid in to the bills account and wages paid in to your individual accounts. Assume a month is 4 weeks worth of benefits payments when you work out how much extra needs to go from the two wages in to the bills account. You will make one big payment a month. Other half a smaller amount every week.

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Example 1 (amend for your own figures):

Total monthly bills £800 + 10% = £880.

Child benefit: £120 every 4 weeks. Paid in to bills account.
Tax credit: £160 every 4 weeks. Paid in to bills account.

Your wage £900 a month. Pay £400 in to the bills account on payday.
Other wage £225 a week. Pay £100 in to the bills account on payday.

You have £500 a month plus £125 a week for other stuff like food, petrol, freezer shop etc.

Real world figures for your household might be tighter. You will have to adjust these numbers to that real world.

If you post your SOA, or just a breakdown of all the direct debits, standing orders and debt repayments, together with the incomes, I'm sure somebody could work the numbers out for you.

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Example 2:

Total monthly bills £1,300 + 10% = £1,430.

Child benefit: £80 every 4 weeks. Paid in to bills account.
Tax credit: £50 every 4 weeks. Paid in to bills account.

Your wage £900 a month. Pay £650 in to the bills account on payday.
Other wage £225 a week. Pay £163 in to the bills account on payday.

You have £250 a month plus £62 a week for other stuff like food, petrol, freezer shop etc.

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One other bill that I'd pay from the bills account by standing order is savings. So opening a savings account for things like holiday, next car, car repairs, emergency fund (unemployment etc) should, in the idealic perfect world, be factored in.

rising_from_the_ashes

I'd agree with the others .... the best thing I ever did was set up a 2nd "bills" account and transfer money to it.

I put in £50 more / month than is required to cover all the bills so there's a little spare for any emergencies that crop up (or could be used for Christmas etc).

I did get a debit card / PIN number - both went in the bin to avoid temptation and the account is fully managed online.

You could easily transfer amounts to it as the various credits are paid into your /DHs accounts.


I have recently started "pots" - mainly as I was still struggling to budget properly with the "incidentals" (car, house insurance, fuel, groceries etc) and this is working well for me - again, I know many people just have on account and keep track on a spreadsheet - I'm not that confident yet! HTH

Firewalker

Hi Full House,

sometime ago I developed a budgetting tool (exactly because our lives are dynamic and most tools like that a static) and some here have been using it and claim that it works (obviously I use it). I wouldn't want to paste a link to it - this may be breaking some Forum rules - but if you would like to test it search for The Money Principle Budgeting Tool.

Firewalker