what my budget does for me

vintagegirl

i have been working to a budget over the last 2 months and its working very well for me so it seems complicated but would be interested in hearing how you work it.

I opened accounts with Halifax online and i have one major account and the rest are smaller websavers.

My dds come out on the first of the month. after that, my tax credits go in and standing orders come out every tuesday to go into these separate accounts.
Like the piggybanking technique everyone uses so much, its ideal.

All the accounts are named stupid names to make it seem more personal to me and i have managed to pay almost £1000 extra over the last 3 months towards my debts

on a tuesday i have

£40 petrol
£30 food
£30 for fun things
£1.62 hair cuts
£1 tuck shop
£2.50 school lunch on a thursday
£5 pocket money for child
£5 gas
£5 electricity
£4.55 road tax
£5 mot
£4.80 christmas
£4.60 Clothes.
£13.90 bus fare.

I would interested to hear how everyone else works it?

rising_from_the_ashes

Well done on being able to pay off so much extra in such a short space of time:T:T

Whatever works for you, is the main thing

I've had my main account and D/debit account for quite a while but never managed to put anything else away without raiding - if it's in one big account, I see ££££s and spend:o:o

I started budgeting properly only around a year ago and I started off with an online saving account for every budget (car insurance, car maintenance, cats, dog, house insurance, landline etc etc) and I was terrified to combine them but by the time I got to 15 (and needed more!), I had to give it a try.

I now have:

• Main account - salary goes in here, pay cc bill and spends
• Household account - transfer set amount on payday & all D/debits come out of here & it's never touched for anything else
• House & Car account - insurance (both), landline (pay in advance for the year to get a discount), car tax, car maintenance/service/mot, emergency fund
• Pets - dog & cat
• Others - hair, dentist, optician, clothes, presents

I have a spreadsheet with an individual page for each pot and a totals page which shows the amount in each one so I can keep track

I pay everything on my cc as I am absolutely useless with cash - so when I get the bill, I go through and work out how much needs to come out of each pot.

It's fairly easy to keep track of as there's only one payment in (payday) and one out (to cover cc spends) each month.

Having them combined means I can also "borrow" small amounts within the group if needed eg car insurance had to be paid this month instead of Dec (swapped cars) and not quite enough in that pot but car service not due until Jan so borrowed the £40 shortfall from there.

Hope that makes some sort of sense!:o

vintagegirl

thanks for your reply. i often read your posts with interest.

I am at 21 online savings accounts but i find its working well for me and i use every one of them, have even started one paying £1 a week in for the cattery for when we go on holiday next year as i find thats an expense i forget about and when it comes around we need to find it which can mount up

i couldnt do the credit card thing, for one i dont have any available balance on it and for 2 i dont have the discipline x

rising_from_the_ashes

vintagegirl wrote: »

i couldnt do the credit card thing, for one i dont have any available balance on it and for 2 i dont have the discipline x

Ahhhh, just shows how we're all different and we need to find what works for us - I can take £30 cash out to last me a couple of weeks and fritter it away in a couple of hours and have nothing to show for it!:o:eek:

YoungBusinessman

I can fritter away £££'s over a weekend and have f all to show for it. Thats the main change iv made recently. Having money in your pocket makes you much more likely to spend as opposed to having nothing or even just your bank card. Could work the other way though and having bank card as opposed to a tenner could mean you spend way more.

vintagegirl

i find having everythig counted to the penny and having that £30 a week to do what i like with, without feeling bad, is working for me

mildredalien

I have two online bank accounts - one for my essential monthly spending (general bills, food etc.) and one for non-regular expenses (clothes, haircuts, car expenses etc.) I've also got a spreadsheet where I tally how much I transfer in for each thing to keep track of my virtual pots. I could do with another to separate car expenses from others, but I'm doing ok so far

I don't keep track of things to the penny - my 'grocery' budget is really for everything I may spend on food, drinks, pets, and random things that aren't covered by a virtual pot. Every time I take out a tenner or £20 I take it off my monthly budget, what exactly I spend it on is not that important, I can still keep track of how much I've spent each month and what's left of my budget.

As has already been pointed out, its whatever works for you!

sparkstertom

One thing that I've always thought of is...

a) would having that many accounts impact on your credit rating somehow? Even though you are saving... you've effectively had to apply for 21 savings accounts(!?!)

b) could you not just ensure you save enough to cover what you need and put that into one savings account?

Just my 2p - but I'd go mad - maybe its my ocd!!

Fair play to anybody who can manage that number of accounts!

sparks*

vintagegirl

sparkstertom wrote: »

One thing that I've always thought of is...

a) would having that many accounts impact on your credit rating somehow? Even though you are saving... you've effectively had to apply for 21 savings accounts(!?!)

b) could you not just ensure you save enough to cover what you need and put that into one savings account?

Just my 2p - but I'd go mad - maybe its my ocd!!

Fair play to anybody who can manage that number of accounts!

sparks*

hiya no theres no credit check of any kind involved with savings accounts and they dont show up on your credit report as there's no credit facilities. all that show are my 4 main current accounts x

sparkstertom

vintagegirl wrote: »

hiya no theres no credit check of any kind involved with savings accounts and they dont show up on your credit report as there's no credit facilities. all that show are my 4 main current accounts x

Happy days then!

Didn't know that!

sparks*

vintagegirl

yeah doubt i would have got them all if theyd credit checked me lol