How do you all track your spending?

JimmyTheWig

We find the best way is to withdraw the week's spending money in cash then stick to only spending that.
[Not that that's what we do, all the time, but that's what works best!]

DigForVictory

You've climbed out from under 50K *without* a system?!
Awe & respect!

If you still have smartphones, there are apps.
Working at a PC checking bank to excel is entirely possible.
Envelopes are simple & cheap.

Experiment?

FireWyrm

thecassman86 wrote: »

FireWyrm, i like the idea of multiple accounts! Especially ones that you can't go overdrawn on so can never go wrong.

Just out of interest:



Does this mean that if in 1 month you only spend £200 on food, you don't re-allocate the remaining £50 to one of the other cards? I.e. spend £250 on clothes? Just curious. Your system is really neat.

Actually, I do. My HSBC account receives all incoming money and it pays all outgoing bills, no exceptions. I never use that account for any purpose, I never carry the card. From HSBC, goes SOs on the 1st of the month to their allocated banks - so, £250 to Natwest for food, £200 to RBS for fuel, £50 to Lloyds and so on. Those are the accounts I am really interested in. If I happen to be under budget for a month, I then have various 'rainy day' funds (called so, because I cant think of a better term) which takes the money and holds it for longer term projects. For instance, I routinely buy bulk at Costco and for that, I need several hundred pounds a quarter to be saved. If I come in under budget from the food account, the balance gets booted into the Costco e-saver and left there to accrue. On the last day of the month, I zero all my running accounts ready for the next fresh injection of budgeted money.

I have longer term savings for annual expenses, and for that, I have e-savers scattered around. Tesco holds Xmas and just accepts a SO every month. I never look at the account until December. I cant take money out of it except by jumping through security hoops and I dont have a card or cheque book attached to it. It is just an account number and sort code. Likewise, I have similar e-savers for Car Tax, Car Insurance (paid annually because I dont get hit with a 34% premium for paying monthly), Sky Line Rental (£140 if you pay it up front or £15.99 if you pay it monthly - or £191 in total) and various others.

Just because I put £200 into Santander for the children, doesnt mean I spend it every month. I have an appended e-saver off that as well which sucks a SO of £60 into it leaving £140 in the main account. This £60 pays for school uniforms once a year while the other £140 is variously used for shoes, new casual clothes or the odd school trip. I actually only buy new clothes probably twice a year, shoes approximately quarterly and school uniform annually. It just means, the money is there when I need it - I dont have to scrabble around late August trying to buy some school clothes on top of my normal running expenses.

Likewise, £60 goes to Lloyds for 'entertainment' and this buys things like DVDs. We dont have Sky TV and therefore dont have need of a license, so all I do is move what I would have paid Sky combined with the license fee into an account to be spent on anything to do with 'entertainment'.

All this may sound complicated, but I promise, it really isnt. I use YNAB to set my budget categories and I use the banking system itself to move and track the money. I have apps on the phone for each of the banks and if I want to buy something, I assign it a category and check the category for the relevant funds. If I dont have those funds, then it cant be bought.

It's not perfect yet, but it is definitely getting there.

Thanks to the budget yesterday, Osbourne has just made it so that you can have a £15,000 ISA filled with cash. My next big budget plan is to fill one of those. £15,000 is the perfect size to act as a buffer if you lose your job and is just under the allowed savings threshold of £16K which is why I think they set it at that value. I fully intend to get one of those and start bunting money into it from each of my accounts - just pennies here and there, but it all adds up eventually.

yorpington

I like GoodBudget on my phone. You create virtual 'envelopes' with a budget amount for various categories, and update it when you spend. Works for me

I use a spreadsheet for my actual budget, but the app is good for day-to-day stuff.

reddleman

I use the specially printed pages at the back of my A5 diary for noting down all my expenses then add them them up on my calculator at the end of each month then total them up at the year end. I've done this for many years and can keep my spending within sensible limits.

thecassman86

FireWyrm wrote: »

Actually, I do. My HSBC account receives all incoming money and it pays all outgoing bills, no exceptions. I never use that account for any purpose, I never carry the card. From HSBC, goes SOs on the 1st of the month to their allocated banks - so, £250 to Natwest for food, £200 to RBS for fuel, £50 to Lloyds and so on. Those are the accounts I am really interested in. If I happen to be under budget for a month, I then have various 'rainy day' funds (called so, because I cant think of a better term) which takes the money and holds it for longer term projects. For instance, I routinely buy bulk at Costco and for that, I need several hundred pounds a quarter to be saved. If I come in under budget from the food account, the balance gets booted into the Costco e-saver and left there to accrue. On the last day of the month, I zero all my running accounts ready for the next fresh injection of budgeted money.

I have longer term savings for annual expenses, and for that, I have e-savers scattered around. Tesco holds Xmas and just accepts a SO every month. I never look at the account until December. I cant take money out of it except by jumping through security hoops and I dont have a card or cheque book attached to it. It is just an account number and sort code. Likewise, I have similar e-savers for Car Tax, Car Insurance (paid annually because I dont get hit with a 34% premium for paying monthly), Sky Line Rental (£140 if you pay it up front or £15.99 if you pay it monthly - or £191 in total) and various others.

Just because I put £200 into Santander for the children, doesnt mean I spend it every month. I have an appended e-saver off that as well which sucks a SO of £60 into it leaving £140 in the main account. This £60 pays for school uniforms once a year while the other £140 is variously used for shoes, new casual clothes or the odd school trip. I actually only buy new clothes probably twice a year, shoes approximately quarterly and school uniform annually. It just means, the money is there when I need it - I dont have to scrabble around late August trying to buy some school clothes on top of my normal running expenses.

Likewise, £60 goes to Lloyds for 'entertainment' and this buys things like DVDs. We dont have Sky TV and therefore dont have need of a license, so all I do is move what I would have paid Sky combined with the license fee into an account to be spent on anything to do with 'entertainment'.

All this may sound complicated, but I promise, it really isnt. I use YNAB to set my budget categories and I use the banking system itself to move and track the money. I have apps on the phone for each of the banks and if I want to buy something, I assign it a category and check the category for the relevant funds. If I dont have those funds, then it cant be bought.

It's not perfect yet, but it is definitely getting there.

Thanks to the budget yesterday, Osbourne has just made it so that you can have a £15,000 ISA filled with cash. My next big budget plan is to fill one of those. £15,000 is the perfect size to act as a buffer if you lose your job and is just under the allowed savings threshold of £16K which is why I think they set it at that value. I fully intend to get one of those and start bunting money into it from each of my accounts - just pennies here and there, but it all adds up eventually.

Wow!! Awesome. You are easily one of the most organised people I've ever heard of!! :A :money:

FireWyrm

thecassman86 wrote: »

Wow!! Awesome. You are easily one of the most organised people I've ever heard of!! :A :money:

I used to run everything out of the HSBC account and never looked at statements since it was just too depressing. I used to spend on that account whenever and on whatever was necessary (and sometimes unnecessary) and until this year, had never budgeted for a long term bill in my life. Consequently, I was forever busting the overdraft or scrabbling for money to pay bills that popped out of nowhere. This way, I know exactly where every penny gets spent and on what. I can tell you to the penny how much was spent this year on food, fuel, clothing etc. I have forecast and will be able to pay car tax, car insurance, mots, line rental, xmas, birthdays, school uniforms, dental and glasses as far ahead as December 2015 as well as paying off unsecured debts. Yesterday, I spent £100 on a birthday bash - I had it, I had forecast it, I knew about it and I spent it with impunity never having to worry about where it was comming from or which Paul got robbed to pay Peter. It is an awesome feeling to be totally in control and I can say I have truly seen the light.

suse*

Another vote for YNAB you can get a free trial which is how I got into it. Just getting into the habbit of using it for the free trial has helped me save lots of money without really trying even. They do webinars to help explain how the software and their systems work and give away a free licence for each session so you might get lucky and win a free copy.

My mot / car tax is due next month yet I already know I have the cash put away for it thanks to the software. It is very easy to change as well if you need to. Eg I had to go to a wedding I hadn't planned for but had actually been spending less on food by trying to be more organised and being amazed how much I was spending to start with. So as I had a food surplus this month I could use that money to go to the wedding instead, and it only took 10 mins of moving the money between the categories to figure it out.

It has handy reports as well so depending how you do your categories, or how you change them later, it helps you see more where your money is going. When I go food shopping I split the bill between junk food and "proper" food as well, to try and help me eat better. So then when I say I can't afford the good food well I've spent 30 quid on chocolate and ready meals, so maybe I could have had something else.

lhead123

Just downloaded YNAB and loving it so far....might have to splash out for the full version when the trail runs out

FireWyrm

suse* wrote: »

When I go food shopping I split the bill between junk food and "proper" food as well, to try and help me eat better. So then when I say I can't afford the good food well I've spent 30 quid on chocolate and ready meals, so maybe I could have had something else.

I like this idea. :T

I have a white board in the kitchen which has slots for a month. I meal plan at the beginning of the month and thanks to a small database of prices and usually buying similar things, I can juggle shopping around to cover the mealplan and come in under budget. We eat a variety of meals and I comb through my recipe books for more ideas. It has to cost less than £200 because that is what I have to spend. I save the other £50 for 'ad-hoc' food such as a fry up breakfast using meat from the butcher for instance, or consumables such as milk and cheese.