How do you stay in budget?

Hayley33

Im pleased to say that by the end of Dec 2013 me & my hubby will be debt-free. One loan ending in the Jan & one the Dec that year. I also have a £2,500 credit card to pay off also in that time frame - we had an unexpected house move & didnt have the two lots of rent, money for carpets, etc.
I hope we can pay it off.
How do you manage to stay in budget tho? Ive been part time 2 years now and taken a big drop and ive managed to stay out of my overdraft, but just lately, im struggling. Im finding I havent got enough. Anybody got any budgeting tips?

YORKSHIRELASS

Hi, I am very envious of you being able to clear your debts by the end of next year - its going to be a much longer haul for us!

To be able to budget properly I think you need to know exactly how much you are spending already. Probably sounds obvious and you maybe are already doing it but you need to have accurate records of exactly how much your monthly outgoings are at the moment. Then you can set a realistic budget. If your budget isnt realistic then it just wont work.

If your income is monthly then the hard thing is stretching it over the month. I divide my grocery shopping budget into four weekly allowances and do the same with my miscellaneous spends. Some people use envelopes or different bank accounts to put different pots of money in.

The key thing is keeping track with spreadsheets or a spending diary so you can see whether you are getting it right. Good luck, it takes a bit of practice and tweaking to get the figures right.

rising_from_the_ashes

Hi Hayley & welcome to MSE:D.

Budgeting is a new thing for me:o and I'm sure not doing it made my debt nightmare go on (and get bigger and bigger) over the years.

Everytime something broke or needed done (eg new washing machine, car service etc) - as I didn't have any money set aside - it got added to the ever-growing cc bill.

I've set up a few budgeting pots (I did start with lots - but it got to the point that I had to combine some) and stick set amounts into them each month.

I can transfer money into / out of them to pay things as they're due but I treat them the same as d/debits - once the money's in them, it stays unless it's for that purpose.

Having them combined means I can "borrow" the odd bit from other pots in the budget (especially as I only started them at the end of last year and have been having to put away larger amounts then should be needed and have struggled to get some to the required amounts in time) eg house insurance due May & is now a negative value but car is now fully serviced/taxed/breakdown cover done until next Jan so some spare funds in there.

But I do keep track of each individual total eg



I have also have a page for each pot so I know what's gone in & out



And a spending spreadsheet where the individual spends (everything!) is logged.

Might seem onerous but once you get the hang of it, it's 2nd nature & doesn't take long to keep them up to date.

Well done on what you've achieved so far & best of luck & hope that gives you some ideas

Learning2Budget

I use a spending diary on my phone...eeba its called. I keep a list of upcoming events and budget for them. For food, petrol and car tax i have a pot of envelopes. I budget for a 5 week month for food and if its only a 4 week month then the extra goes into the emergency fund. I also meal plan and shop weekly.
Its tough but i am getting soo much better. Good luck with your debt free date. L2B.x

foxgloves

I've got my 'Money Book'. It's just a big lined A4 notebook. I do our big monthly budget in there on payday, checking all last month's payments went out OK, & there are no nasty surprises, then I take off all outstanding receipts/cheques, before coming up with the total we have for the coming month. I subtract all the regular monthly bills, then look for any irregular ones like quarterly payments (which can catch you out). Then I subtract the grocery/household bill for the month which is currently £250, then our 'monthly spends'.....this ranges from £50 to £100 each (mostly it's £50), depending on how flush we're feeling. We found that having a small pot of personal money stopped us making all those little 'dips' into the account which are quickly forgotten about but soon add up. We always put petrol on a credit card. It's paid off every month, so no interest (in fact we only do this to get free M&S vouchers) but it means that as we've got the receipts we always know what petrol expenses are going to be & as we are more or less paying a month in arrears the way they work their statements, so easy to budget this. The amount of money left is what we have to save (a modest regular sum goes into an emergency fund as we were always finding ourselves putting car repair bills, new washing machines, etc, on credit cards before we became debt-free) and available for other things. I don't do any spreadsheets.....I like using my Money Book, as plenty of room for calculations & writing notes to myself. e.g this month it looks like we have some spare money to spend, but writing myself a note that says 'N.B Car service due next month' reminds me to be careful as we've all been caught out by a huge car bill, haven't we? So, not very high tech, but after a lifetime of overspending & failing to do any budgeting whatsoever, it's working well for us.

Doingmybest2bgoodhurrah

Hi,

I use a note book and use a page per month. I list absolutely everything I need to pay for that month, even down to the car tax which is only £20 per year. I deduct the total from my bank account balance so I know what I've got left; this prevents me from going over drawn. I transfer money for annual things like insurances, MOT & service, car tax, birthdays, Christmas (aarrrgh!) etc into another account but keep a running total for each of them in my note book.
I place £40 cash into my "food purse" every Sunday evening for the week and when its gone its gone. I also set a bit aside every month for half yearly items such as the dentist. Should I be lucky enough to get away with just a check up it rolls over for next time until the total hits a certain point, then I transfer it to the emergency fund.

I've been doing this for some time now & thought I was doing well & being really clever, until I got caught out with my biennial trip to the optician. I needed a new prescription for my specs which I hadn't budgeted for, so now I set a bit aside every month.

Some people do this much more cleverly that me by using spreadsheets, mobile phone aps etc, but I'm an old fashioned girl and not very technically adept I'm afraid. Ho hum.

I also have a little notebook in my handbag in which I record absolutely everything I spend: bus ticket, prescriptions, even the odd £1 for a collection at work.

This, I find, is the only way I can stay disciplined & bring each month in on budget. I have to keep myself in control of every penny because if left myself to my own devices I don't think I would ever reach my debt free day, deep do deep down there's a spend-thrift dying to get out.

DMB x

kellydobson

Hi I've been reading your replies and these budget techniques sound good, but what about if you get paid weekly? x

rising_from_the_ashes

kellydobson wrote: »

Hi I've been reading your replies and these budget techniques sound good, but what about if you get paid weekly? x

If you're paid weekly but have lots of monthly bills, you need to work out how much you need to put to your bills account each week.

eg I transfer £600 / month to my bills account to cover all my d/debits.

Easy for me as I'm paid monthly but if I was paid weekly, I'd need to transfer around £140 / week (probably £150 to be on the comfortable side). It is more difficult as some months have 4 weeks and others 5 weeks but, once you're up and running, it should work fine (see comments below)

I would say that the best advice I was ever given was to set up a separate account for my d/debits (this account is never touched for anything else - no matter how skint I am! and you do have to be disciplined not to *raid*)

It's so much easier to have all the payments coming off a separate account and being able to transfer money to it to cover them - no worrying that you've overspent and a payment won't be made. HTH

PasturesNew

Hayley33 wrote: »

Anybody got any budgeting tips?

Don't go anywhere, don't do anything, don't buy stuff, don't spend anything. Then sit inside with the light out working out how you can find beans 1p cheaper next time.

headoutthesand

I have a few different accounts with HBOS and use online banking.

I have one account called wages - this is obviously where my wages go into and where I do my general spending from

another is called Direct Debits - names says it all. Money is transferred in here every payday to cover my DD

Occasions - This is to cover birthday presents, nights out, waxing, hair appointments, school trips etc

Fence - I need a new fence so money is put in here to cover it

Divorce - Need one of these too :rotfl:

I also have another account in another bank but only have a pass book for it. A SO goes from my DD account every month. This account is for emergencies and Christmases.

I use an A5 diary as my daily spending diary. I write my balance from each account in it each day and also record my daily spending.

I'm in the early stages of my budgeting but find this method works better from me than what online things do. I usually fill in my diary when i'm in bed at night. I use my mobile banking to check my accounts then check again first thing in the morning (my BF calls me a geek).

You have to find a method that works best for you but hopefully the tips from everyone on here will help you choose which is best.

vintagegirl

Im ploughing every penny into my overdraft just now so leaving every penny in there but once that's paid off on thursday, ia hev accounts with HBOS which are labelled

GENERAL
HOLIDAY CASH
ISA
ROAD TAX
MOT
DIRECT DEBITS
PETROL MONEY
SPARE CASH