Advice need re: new way of budgeting

immoral_angeluk

lynsayjane wrote: »

hey IA, I'm not exactly the worlds best at budgetting....in fact I'm pure crap! but one thing I did notice is that there is nothing for unbudgeted spends, ie the stuff that appears in the weekly challenge/daily spends threads. magazines, sweets for the kids...and you! It may not be something you do frequently but perhaps a small allowance (£5-10 a week) would mean it's not a problem if you do spend, but also you can save what you don't spend in a jar to make lump payments on your cards. just cause you've budgetted it doesn't mean you have to spend it!

presume things like toiletries etc is included in your food budget?

Toiletries is yes. I haven't budgeted anything for myself actually but it's rare I actually spend anything but I suppose if I did budget some for myself I could buy something and not feel guilty but TBH I'm the kind of person that would rather go without if it meant I could put that extra money on debt!

lynsayjane

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

Toiletries is yes. I haven't budgeted anything for myself actually but it's rare I actually spend anything but I suppose if I did budget some for myself I could buy something and not feel guilty but TBH I'm the kind of person that would rather go without if it meant I could put that extra money on debt!

it's just a suggestion my love, but like I say at least if it's budgetted for if you do buy ash a sweetie or a mag for yourself then you won't feel bad or have to worry about where to fit it in, and if you don't spend anything then it can go back towards debt payments, either way you win

Kaz2904

Re: tax credits being paid weekly: You need to have enough cashflow so that you can get through the month so what I always do is write down pay day as the first day of the month and then make sure everything goes out around then. You won't be able to do this as you need the money there.
How about getting your bills to go out on the day before payday? That way you will be able to earn interest on your money while it's sitting there waiting to pay your bills. Alternatively try and save over the next 5-6 months so that you will always have roughly a months money (tax credits) at the beginning of the month.
I don't think I've made myself clear because I can't really understand what I'm trying to say so don't know how you will!
The only thing I can think is that you may be seeing your daily budget as a target rather than a limit? I know you don't because you save a lot from your daily money but maybe sometimes you do? (again makes no sense, sorry!).

I don't know if this will help but this is how I set out my budget:
Pay day = 22nd. Cash withdrawn:
Petrol £80
DH money £80
Me money £50
Family leisure £100
Shopping £300 (although I shop online, I buy it and then put the cash back into my bank account to stay on track.)
Then DD's:
23rd: Life insurance £9.89
Kids pensions £50
Gas and electric £78
25th: Mortgage £1233.85
26th: my mobile £30
1st: Council tax £104.37
Water rates £25.89
2nd: tv licence £11.37
5th: Broadband £15.99 (Just noticed I've been overcharged this month, DH will have to chase up why!)
9th: Window loan £86.15
10th: yearly items savings £140 (covers birthdays, christmas, insurances and car tax)
Mum loan repayment £10
11th: Phone bill £15 (usually less)

Monthly Total: £2420.51

Me incoming: Approx £1600
DH incoming: Approx £900
CB: £121 (can't remeber and just closed internet banking!)
TC: £42.10

Any surplus is to go into savings towards unbudgeted spends such as our holiday or work on the house. These aren't budgeted because they are not regular expenditures and we never know how much any work will cost at the outset. (All rooms need redoing down to hacking off old wet plaster etc. But external work needs to be done first before downstairs can be to sort out the damp) We do do all of the work ourselves so it takes forever but gives us the opportunity to save up in between times for the next big expense. We've done our kitchen and bathroom so they're the expensive rooms done!

I am ashamed to say that we would just waste this extra money on rubbish if we had no budget.

art_student

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

Dh wages min £850 a month
tc approx £400 a month
cb £120.80
= £1370.80

Bills Approx £821
Food £180
Car tax/MOT £40
DH work lunches and petrol budget £130 (?)
= £1171

If these figures are right then your hubby earn enough to cover the household bills which are monthly. Then you could use your tax credits for thing like food shopping etc which are not DDs and therefore more flexible. So you could do a weekly shop from your tax credits and give hubby a weekly amount for lunches and petrol etc. and you could put £10 a week for car stuff maybe?
Does this make sense?
Hope this helps.

clarab_3

IA, I dont know if you have transport, a big freezer or anything like that but i find it easier to split my food budget from my "non essentials" its not that the budget goes up any, just that by bugetting £50 for my food for the month, I can get a "big shop" in at the start of the month and save by planning, and just keep £15 for fresh veg an milk for the rest of the month.

then I find I can get by on very little day to day as well, which i work on a weekly buget

I have no idea if that even makes sense...

tesuhoha

Does the Car tax/MOT fund also include car insurance? It looks like it does but not sure. Also, a thing that I have started doing that I find works quite well is saving in different accounts (pots as Martin would say) for different things i.e. (In my case) saving £50 per month in one account for Christmas, saving in another account for birthdays but that could be put together, saving in yet another account for car bills, another for the weekly shop which is paid off each month as its a cashback cc that I buy the shopping with and yet another for OHs tax bill which is coming next January. If you pretend all these things are DDs going out that you have to pay like the mortgage then its much easier and you have enough money for the bills and interest paid too.

immoral_angeluk

tesuhoha wrote: »

Does the Car tax/MOT fund also include car insurance? It looks like it does but not sure. Also, a thing that I have started doing that I find works quite well is saving in different accounts (pots as Martin would say) for different things i.e. (In my case) saving £50 per month in one account for Christmas, saving in another account for birthdays but that could be put together, saving in yet another account for car bills, another for the weekly shop which is paid off each month as its a cashback cc that I buy the shopping with and yet another for OHs tax bill which is coming next January. If you pretend all these things are DDs going out that you have to pay like the mortgage then its much easier and you have enough money for the bills and interest paid too.

No car insurance is in with the bills...

Kaz2904

sorry IA, I don't know if I hijacked your thread a bit there and people are getting muddled with my example?

Spendless

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

Have done Martin's budget thing but it just tells me that we're in the green. Don't get me wrong that's brill but it's very rare we spend money on haircuts, etc as wepile every spare money that we'd usually spend on those kinds of things onto debt!

I actually like your daily spends budget idea, dividing till payday. I'm guessing Ste gets paid on the last working day of month (like my husband) so it means payday can be from 28th onwards, which means last month was great getting paid just before w/end and this month is rubbish having to wait till Monday.

The only thing I thought was your budget didn't allow for things you'd either forgotten about or emergencies. If it's something you def do not spend on ever eg school trips (cos it doesn't apply to you) then yes you leave out the budget but when it's something you do spend money on, even if only aoccassionally, then you have to have a budget for it or accept it comes out of daily spends.

I'm guessing you do Stes hair and currently the girls don't need haircuts, but Ashli will need a trim at some point and so will you, putting a few £ a month towards these, means you'd have the cash for the hair dye or to buy a bottle of wine for the friend who did your hair.

For example- My mums a hairdresser so me and DDs hair is done for free. DH and DS go to barbers at £5.30 + £5.70 every 6 weeks so 11.00/6 = 1.83 a week. Put like that it doesn't seem much, but finding £11 out of a daily spend budget makes it a lot and affects the rest of the months daily spends.

Storm

Hi IA,

I agree with art-student, if you say Ste's wages cover the bills, then as TCs & CB comes in each week allocate £10 to the car savings, £30 to petrol & his lunches, £45 to food & the rest (£45) gets saved. That would mean that you're saving at least £180 a month towards the debts, and £225 on those 5-week months, plus the extra £30 from Ste's wages that's not going towards bills.

I personally like weekly budgets, and tend to withdraw in cash what I'm allowed to spend. Depending what day your bills go out though, you might want to keep some of the debt money in the account for the first month or two, jsut to make sure nothing bounces