Family budget professional needed

aeldron

Hello.

Does anyone know where to find an affordable personal financial advisor? Basically someone who would analyse our accounts and devise a family budget that we could stick to. Would that be a task for an accountant?

I am aware that I could do it myself on a spreadsheet but to be honest prospect spending so many hours going through our current accounts and credit card statements is daunting.

We are both working parents with very little free time at our disposal. The little time we get we rather spend playing with our boy who doesn't see us much during the week.

We have a relatively good income but lately debt seems to be creeping up on us. We need to figure out where the money is going.

Any tips?

reehsetin

A good start may be Money Dashboard - you need to give it login details for internet banking but I've found it to be more than good enough security wise

It will then import your transactions and put any it knows about it to a specific category - any it doesn't know you can tag yourself

it will then allow you to see a breakdown of your spending e.g. for the past year

negatives - their tags aren't always exactly what i'd want them to be and you can't customise them
ongoing - you can set up auto tags for most things and just pick up the exceptions

it's a much easier way to start understanding your spending
https://www.moneydashboard.com/

agrinnall

https://www.unbiased.co.uk/

grumbler

aeldron wrote: »

... Would that be a task for an accountant?
...

We have a relatively good income but lately debt seems to be creeping up on us. We need to figure out where the money is going.

Your income seems to be not good enough for you to afford paying through the nose to an accountant.

It's not a rocket science and doesn't require much time to figure out yourself.

meer53

If debt is creeping up on you, the last thing you need to be doing is paying an accountant to work out where you're going wrong !

Working full time with one child should leave you enough spare time to get together to work out a budget. What do you do when your son is in bed ? I'm a single mum with 2 kids, i work full time and i've always made time to balance the books. I've had to. If you want to do it, you will make the time. It doesn't have to be done in one day, it might take a week, but wouldn't it be better to do that than pay someone else ?

No-one understands your lifestyle better than you, it's simple, income v outgoings = available balance or deficit balance. 2 lists, and a calculator.

Mojisola

Put a statement of affairs on the Debt-free Board and you'll get plenty of free advice.

rockm87

try YNAB, everyone on the debt free wannabe forum raves about it!

I think they do a month's free trial, but its cheaper than an accountant.

eskbanker

aeldron wrote: »

We need to figure out where the money is going.

Mojisola wrote: »

Put a statement of affairs on the Debt-free Board and you'll get plenty of free advice.

The tool usually recommended on the DFW board is http://www.stoozing.com/calculator/soa.php - it won't give you all the answers but it'll almost certainly help you understand where your money is currently going, and as above others will offer suggestions if you post it on DFW....

FZwanab

I use ynab myself and find it great. Here is a pen and paper version of a zero based budget, it's a bit slow to start off and I'm sure it's easier to do a lot of this electronically, but here is the idea : http://youtu.be/PWF-zpgS5YA ,I love working on our budget, even though we don't have much. I figure out all our yearly expenses eg. Christmas/ insurance etc. And divide by number of months remaining until that date arrives, then I usually have enough for the likes of back to school, birthdays, car tax, when they are due. Then there are regular monthly expenses like food, clothes, petrol etc. I budget for everything as soon as the money hits my bank account including personal spending/fun money. It's really important to have an emergency fund for the likes of a car breakdown, boiler breaking etc. and to categorise savings eg. Replacement car not just have it labelled savings. Have savings goals big or small.

Debsnewbudget

I have just helped my DD set up a budget
We sat down for 30 mins and put a rough idea of expenditure against categories.
They then collected every receipt for a month and just put them in a jar.
Then added them all up and put an actual amount against the categories.
This opened their eyes to how much they were spending and they made a determined effort to cut their costs especially for food.
After the next month of collecting receipts they did the same thing again.
Every month they sit down for 30 mins after dinner one night add up last months expenditure and plan for the next month including any birthdays, events, meals out etc.
Because they are doing it themselves they now own it and make sure they keep an eye on what they spend.
Please try it, 30 mins a month and the fact that you are in it together and know where you spend your money is better than adding to any debt by employing someone to give you a budget.
You don't have to get it right first month, it's an ongoing process.
Good Luck

pmduk

Even if you were to spend money employing a professional, it would still involve a great deal of your time preparing the information they'd need. The very process of organising this yourself will teach you the basics to move forward in the future.