How to make budgets

FlyingDonkeys

trying to do a spreadsheet to make up a monthly budget. What do I do with yearly amounts which I pay on one go. How best to put into a spreadsheet.

Should I divide by 12 and add? But then that would suggest I have find an amount each month when I have paid this at end of last year

Its coming up in one lump sum end of this month.. Sigh.. : ( not good with figures

Aim is have a budget and stick to it for next year & show partner monthly budget for household

Debt_free_soon_2

Winner,

I've got no idea but am eagerly awaiting some responses too! People often talk about their spreadsheets, I'd love to see how they are laid out as I don't know where to start either!


I have a list of outgoings (very long) and a very short list of income! :-(


Good luck on your quest to be organised! :-)

Heffi1

I would do as you suggest and divide the yearly total by 12 to get a monthly amount and start to save that amount separate to the rest of your money, so next year when it is due you have the money put by.

Groceries are always hard to guess, so a spending diary for a couple of weeks/month will give you a good idea about how much to put by, do you shop weekly or monthly, only take out cash with you and only spend on the things you need. This can take some time to work out, the spending diary has to have every single thing you buy, including the magazine, coffee on the way to work, bag of crisps etc.

Once you know how much each of them come to you can work out how much money you need to put by and the rest (if any) can be used for debt.

Maybe fill out an SOA (sticky on front page) as this helps work out what you need to budget for and also we can help show how to reduce these costs.

HTH

fracturedsun

Definitely second working out the annual expenditures as a monthly figure (or weekly if that's how you get paid) and putting it aside. It won't help this year unfortunately but next year you will have all that money set aside so you don't have to worry.

I get paid weekly and most of my bills are monthly so I do this for everything. It involves having lots of little saving accounts but I know exactly how much money I have left to spend each week and you get interest too.

I also do this for anything that's fairly big but not regular... e.g furnishings, clothes etc. I have a small budget set aside so when I find I desperately need new shoes or to replace a sofa cover the money is there.

A spending diary is the easiest way to see what you are really spending day to day, and can be very eye opening. Then I just go through my list of direct debits and bank statements to see what larger or regular payments I have and budget for them based on the amount I spent in a year. There's always some things which are just random one offs but it really does help.