Soa

BargainButtons

Thanks Beaker99, great tip. I've budgeted for dh and I to have £10 each per week in our pockets so we hopefully won't need to go to the cash machine.

My salary will go up by £400 per month in august (I'm currently on mat leave so on reduced pay) so then I should be able to clear some of the credit card debt.

I'mon the case with the ynab tool - feeling really good about this! This is going to get us in order i hope!

katy_ann

I'll agree with the others about the grocery bill is very high, but other than that it doesn't look too bad! Aldi is brilliant, once a month I shop at about 4 different places to get all the best deals! Aldi, Asda and Iceland are my main supermarkets though and if you combine the deals you can save a lot of money! x

japmis

andyfromotley wrote: »

Hi BB,


2. Draw a line under it. The money was spent hey ho. Start budgeting properly now. I use YNAB and i think its fab, i know exactly what i have to spend at any time (and on what). I put money away for everything that can be foreseen. If i overspend in any one area i know about it and have to work out where the money to cover it is coming from. It works for me.

YEP!!! YNAB all the way. Budgetting, SOAs and excel spreadsheets did me no good whatsoever. I can't recommend YNAB highly enough.

:j

BargainButtons

Well I've down loaded ynab, had a good read through the ynab thread and have started populating the sheet. I have a feeling this is going to be quite addictive.

tlc678910

Hi, I noticed in your SOA you had 0 for child care and £50 for entertainment. With 3 kids in the household I wondered if you have costs for clubs, sports, music lessons, cinema, days out etc?

This could be where some of your "missing" money is?

tlc

BargainButtons

tlc678910 wrote: »

Hi, I noticed in your SOA you had 0 for child care and £50 for entertainment. With 3 kids in the household I wondered if you have costs for clubs, sports, music lessons, cinema, days out etc?

This could be where some of your "missing" money is?

tlc

Yes I hadn't been budgeting for things like swimming and dancing lessons so now I'm on the case with ynab I've allocated £50 per month to this. This is in addition to £50 per month for entertainment/family days out.

We're fortunate that at the moment we don't have any child care costs however this will change in September - and by then i will be back on full pay.
It's amazing discovering where money goes once you really start looking into it. I feel ashamed at how much we have probably wasted.

Pixie5740

I'm not in debt but once I started using YNAB I realised just how much money I was haemorrhaging on crap.