Help me with my budgeting.

welshsarah1

Im really bad with my money, I have 2 kids and 1 due in august and hoping that someone can help me with my finances. I know this is really cheeky but my OH wont sit down and go through it with me and I get stressed. Just looking at tips to help me save and want to try building a bit of savings, Can you help?xx

Here is my incoming s

Pay 1070 a month
housing allowance 110 every 4 weeks
Tax Credits 522 every 4 weeks
Child benefit 134 every 4 weeks

Outgoings
Rent 450 a month
Council tax 107 a month
gas and electric 180 a month (its been freezing this winter)
Sky 30 (we have broadband, tv and phone) monthly
car insurance 34 monthly
Daughters dinner money 45 every 4 weeks
Sons playgroup 60 every 4 weeks
Petrol 120 every 4 weeks
Mobile contract 25 every month (contract until march)
tv licence 12 a month
netflix and love film 16 a month
water 30 a month

I also have 700 on BNPL (ending end of april 2014, from very (Bought baby stuff but this is only debt we do have)

Just need help with saving some money back for car tax, and maintenance and saving to pay off the BNPL. Thank you so much xxx

chili1496

by my rough calculations you have a surplus of £700 per month for food, clothingh and general living i am not sure where your problem is? i have £250 a month left over and have to make do.

how do you use £120 in petrol per month is this too work?

is netflix a neccessity? probably not.
i don't think the winter was all that bad, you could also save on monthly food bill by getting rid of the OH, can't be all that interested if they won't sit down and go through it all as a partnership/couple

The_pc_tech

Why do you have Netflix and Lovefilm? Killing one of these off will instantly save some cash.

How much do you leave for food?

iazcac

I agree with chili, and reckon this surplus £700 is where you can make the biggest savings. How much do you spend on "entertainment" - takeaways / cinema / pub / hobbies?

Work out what your total annual costs are for car tax, insurance and maintenance and divide by 12. Try and put this amount into a separate account each month so when the bills come you already have the money.

Yorkie1

I know this is the budgeting board, but the folks over on the debt free wannabee board are very good at analysing spending (on what is called a statement of affairs) to find ways of saving money.

innovate

Use the SOA calculator to illustrate where your money goes. May be even your hubby can be tempted to have a look at it when it's all on paper.

If you want comments to it, post it on the Debtfree Wannabe board, you'll get lots more sympathetic help over there than here.

pqrdef

First thing is to know where all the money goes. You can't find savings if the money slips through your fingers and you don't know where its gone or just how much you're spending on this and that.

Then you need a budget for 12 months ahead. Do it on a computer so you can keep tweaking it and updating it. Multiply the monthly amounts by 12 and the 4-weekly amounts by 13, then add on the irregular things. Start with an outline and keep refining it.

Be as complete as possible, it won't work if you miss things out.

Be as accurate as possible. e.g. no dinner money during holidays.

Then whittle it down. You don't have to do this all at once. Take one item at a time and look at the options for reducing it.

If it won't balance -don't kid yourself - then there's no two ways about it, you're living beyond your means and you'll have to cut back somewhere.

If it balances, whittle it down anyway, no point in wasting money just because it's there.

Stick to the budget. If you spend any money that's not on it, you'll have to find a saving somewhere to rebalance it.


Then there's the cashflow. Probably simplest to use the benefits for weekly shopping and pocket money and the routine 4-weekly costs. Use the monthly pay to pay all the monthly bills. What's left over, move that to a separate pot and use it for all the irregular expenses like car tax and Christmas. Any other spare money goes in here as well (e.g that dinner money). Keep a schedule of everything going in and out of this pot in the next 12 months,.in date order, and never get it mixed up with the weekly spending.

It might help to have more bank accounts. With those bills I'd want a Santander 123 (through a cashback site) to pay the bills out of. Esavers are handy as pots.