How do you pay for things?

cakeforbrains

Teacher2 wrote: »

"If it's the credit card is it only for groceries? What about clothes, furnishings, presents?
What about non-monthly costs like Christmas? "

I hope you do not mind my mentioning this but, if you are trying to get straight and financially secure, presents and Christmas are a bit of a luxury.

Clearly, if you have children, they need their birthday and Christmas presents although even in this case you should manage their expectations to a realistic level and include expensive necessities like new clothes and shoes.

In the meantime you should let your friends and family know you are trying to get straight and do a mixture of the following:-

-have low limits for mutual presents, say, no more than a fiver or a tenner
-do 'Secret Santas' where you draw names out of a hat and ONLY buy for the one person whose name you draw
-have family (parents, grandparents) give you money for birthdays and Christmas to pay off any bills/debts you have
-give 'time' rather than money, for example, make a token for some babysitting or car cleaning or decorating
-make presents like cakes, puddings or jars of preserves (my daughter was hard up and made cushions for all of her friends from beautiful scrap material from bin ends and charity shop dresses and then appliqued their initials on them.)
-use tokens like Tesco's Clubcard vouchers or Boots points to buy presents. Boots do 342 offers on gifts at Christmas too.

I think you will find that most people wil be really sympathetic and if they are not, ignore them. You might well find that others are relieved to be able to take the expensive present giving down a notch as expectations have become quite a burden in these days of austerity.

Anyway, good luck.

Yes, when I wrote 'presents and christmas' I was thinking of children, primarily. We have three sons, 13, 11 and 3.

Last Christmas I spent a combined £250 on them, which included an effective BOGOF discount on Hudls (Tesco own brand tablets) by using clubcard points.

We then had four parents and three brothers to buy for, who all got gifts from Sainsburys paid for with Nectar points. Most years we make something (soap, fudge, cakes on a lovely handpainted plate) but once you include trial runs these work out as not much cheaper than shop-bought stuff, especially if that stuff is paid/part-paid with points, vouchers, or special offers.

My sons already have pretty low expectations, in that they never ask for anything and aren't interested in branded items. The older two have monthly pocket money, which they often save to buy their own toys. They're also expected to buy Christmas/birthday gifts for the rest of the household out of this money.

I can't remember the last time my husband and I bought Christmas gifts for each other, although on birthdays we might take each other for a meal (using joint money as it's all joint).

Saying all that, even with cheap presents Christmas does just cost more. Last year we fed and accommodated three extra adults (as well as the five of us) and not one of them offered to contribute money or food, so that was annoying. This year I intend to be more on top of the food budget.

Edit to say: my older children can't wait for Christmas for new clothes as they're both entering puberty. The youngest is a growing pre-schooler. That said, the only expensive clothing items we buy are training shoes and spikes for my eldest, who is a runner.

DD265

I use cash/debit card/bank transfer/direct debit from my main account and a secondary account. Effectively cash I guess.

I don't use my credit card any more, I am putting money aside for the less frequent expenditures.

I will use my PayPal account if the purchase relates to sales, e.g. more packaging material etc. But each time the balance in there exceeds £100, I transfer that hundred to my bank account and either overpay my credit card, or put it towards my budget.

samjac

I work out a budget on a spreadsheet and my wife and I then use a free app called Good budget to manage a virtual envelope system.

So for example my monthly food budget is £180, so I have a food envelope in good budget set to £180. Every time we spend money from that budget we put the spend on there. I then have all the other envelopes we might spend from and do the same.

We mainly use 2 cash back credit cards which we repay in full every month, but I never have to worry about the balance on those or in my current account as I know what we have to spend.

This works really effectively for us, but the system would break down entirely if we weren't both 100% honest/accurate with it.

davidsdesire

i have one credit card with a low limit ($1500) that I use for day to day expenses then pay it in full each month. This enables me to track what I've spent, what category they fall into and I do get some rewards for using that card (that I use to pay for our holidays!).

byjimini

I use my credit card, because I want to start building up my credit score again. It's set to pay off the maximum each month, so any excesses will always come back to bite me, so it makes me think twice.

tain

I'd never pay for stuff on card if I didn't have my online banking app to keep me in check. I will only have a current account with a bank that offers this service as well. I simply can't be trusted with a card where I can't immediately see how much I've spent and how much is left over!

Teacher2

"I can't remember the last time my husband and I bought Christmas gifts for each other, although on birthdays we might take each other for a meal (using joint money as it's all joint)."

Clearly you did not need my advice as you have it all taped! Your children seem to be very sympathetic on the Christmas present front as ours were. We gave them a limit and they chose what they wanted. Anything else they got was what was needed like clothes or shoes.

Your remark about your OH and yourself not spending on each other at Christmas also struck a note. My husband bought me a surprise present this year and it is the first I had from him in well over a decade as we had long since given up buying each other gifts at the festive season. When our children were little we just couldn't justify the expense. I have to say it never much upset us as we preferred to feel we were not getting ourselves into debt.

We too use vouchers and tokens to buy presents. My OH gets the Boots' points and I get the Tesco's tokens and we use offers a lot on the rare occasions on which we dine out. My children have picked up the habit of frugality too and, now that they are grown up, look for bargains and knock downs. My daughter hits Morrison's at 'yellow sticker' time on Sunday and my son brought home a pork roasting joint the other day he found knocked down to a couple of pounds. We all get a lot of bang for our buck, as they say.

Pixie5740

I use YNAB to budget which means that I'm putting money aside for annual expenses such as car insurance and Christmas throughout the year. It's such a satisfying feeling going to purchase something and knowing you have the money to cover it instead of whacking it on a CC.

Cash has always burned a hole in my pocket so I try and avoid taking money out my account this way and instead use my debit card or better still have a NSD. :j

Online purchases I make using a CC for added security but only if there's money in the budget for whatever I'm buying.

KirstyO

The system I'm using at the moment is a bit haphazard, but I'm debating investing in YNAB to bring it all together and put my mind at rest.


I get paid in the middle of each month for that calendar month (don't ask!). Two days after payday all of my 'pots' go out into either other bank accounts or savers attached to my current account for:


House deposit
Holiday Fund
Emergency Fund
Bills (rent, council tax, utilities, phone and internet, joint grocery shops, contents insurance etc)


When this has gone out I look at what is left. I check my DD's and standing orders and subtract these from the remaining total, which should give me my spends until next payday. I divide this by however many full weeks there are until next payday to give me a weekly spends limit (for fuel, groceries that are just for me, entertainment, clothes etc...although I would like to get clothes and entertainment on a different system). Quite often, even if it looks like I've got more to spend in a month I'll knock myself back to 60-80 a week which I will quite often withdraw as cash.


it's this day to day spending that is less under control. I'll have the cash on me but rarely will I solely use cash for the full week.


I do have a credit card which I use for petrol up to the value of £80 a month and pay in full. I'll only use my cash for petrol if I need anything more than £80 (or if I've already hit my self-imposed £80 limit on other things...naughty naughty).


As I say, a bit messy at the moment, I'm hoping I can use YNAB to get the daily spending a bit tidier and have more 'pots' even if the money isn't moved out of my current account, it should be able to stay there!! I noticed a big YNAB thing is working off your budget and not your bank balance. I like this idea because I've always been one of those people where if I can see available money, I'll spend it (hence the reason I got into debt in the first place!).

Scudsurfer

I have my main bank account that all bills come out of,then every Friday I have a transfer to my prepaid visa debit card that I use to pay for everything else. I check it online before I go shopping so I know my maximum spend.

It is free to load via bank transfer or in paypoint shops and if I need cash from it I ask for cash back at shops so I don't pay ATM fees.