Climbing the Mountain

MistyMountainTop

Thanks to you both - I should have started the with the SoA and Budget Brain as EssexH said. Why didn't I? I have no idea. Our finances are split, so my personal budget will be separate from hubs. The problems arise when I pay for something (food, for example) that is supposed to come out of the 'main' (hubs) budget. I can see this happens regularly so will need to add it to my budget as well. Hopefully once I have finished mine, hubs will do his and all will be well

MistyMountainTop

Basic budget done - I overspend £18 a month, which is aprox. what I spend on food that is not taken from the main (hub's) account. I will need to get this down but also must increase my income - otherwise I will never be able to buy a house, let alone anything else!

I am going to keep trying with YNAB to have somewhere to put goals, etc. and help keep me motivated. I like the charts that it does for you, showing you what percentage you have saved, etc and I can access my budget from a phone or tablet. If I can't get on with it, I'll look around for something else - Simple Home Budget looks pretty good, though not as fancy as YNAB. It's aprox £25 to download but then you own it.

I feel mentally exhausted, which is silly because this is not rocket science. I need a tea break and then will do 15 mins of listing something for sale. A menu plan seems like more than I can handle at the moment.

EssexHebridean

Glad to have helped Misty & MM! Sometimes we get hung up on feeling as though we should do things a certain way I think - and also that "if everyone else is making it work, I should too". I have no problem with YNAB but I do refuse to pay for something I can perfectly well do for free! :rotfl:

MistyMountainTop

EssexHebridean wrote: »

I have no problem with YNAB but I do refuse to pay for something I can perfectly well do for free! :rotfl:

TBH I am having trouble with this as well. It would be different if it were a one time payment but I do not like the whole subscriber thing, I don't want any more monthly payments coming out of my account.

I've had a look at Simple Home Budget and it doesn't look anywhere near as good as YNAB

fru-girl

@Misty: it took me a while to learn YNAB because it works differently. Basically you should only budget money that you add to it.

For instance, if I know my Barclays account is due to receive £500 tomorrow (I wish) I enter that transaction as an in-flow, then I go to budget view I allocate the £500 to different spending categories: £100 to CC payments, £100 to council tax, and £300 to groceries.

When I use £50 to pay for groceries, I enter the transaction in Barclays acct in YNAB, then my available grocery budget reduces to £250.

The key is to only budget money you have coming in - as they say - give each £ a job to do.

You can enter recurrent transactions (e.g. rent) but the system will ask you to confirm each month that you indeed paid X amounts on rent. When you get your salary each month, you budget absolutely everything - rent, groceries, etc.

If you make a mistake, you can use the reconcile option.

Don't bother with impporting from your bank, I think it only works in the US? Not sure. Ijn any case, I didn't bother with old transactions. I started with the balance I had in Barclays and the balance on all credit cards - manually, then budgeted the balance from Barclays. When I get paid on the 25th (and when I get child maintenance and child benefit) I will budget that amount - to tell the system what I'm going to spend it on.

I also added my Edenred childvouchers account - as a cash account, as I use a combination of cash and vouchers for childcare.

Good luck.

PS. You can do with Excel only, or other simpler app such as Spending Tracker - but TBH I find YNAB online much easier, now that's all set up. Then all I need to to is make sure I enter all transactions in the app and budget all incoming money, and review once a month for discrepancies (like overspending in a category, or forgetting to enter a transaction).

[Deleted User]

Hi MMT,

I'll confess I'm not too keen on trying out YNAB, by the sounds of it it's quite tricky and I'm not that tech savvy. I have an excel spreadsheet that works for me, when I remember to update it :rotfl:

MistyMountainTop

Thank you fru-girl! I'm trying to figure out how to put in my savings goal for buying a house, but haven't figured it out yet. I am trying not to get too frustrated as it is all new to me, but if I'm not much further along by the end of the trial, I'll go back to pen and paper. That I understand

I know how you feel purpleMo2! It is confusing!

MistyMountainTop

After watching endless videos, I think I am beginning to understand. It looks like a great program, hopefully I'll have decided one way or the other by the time the trial is up.

I did list two things on the selling group, but didn't get much else done aside from that.

Huskyrunner

re book buying ziffit.com tend too offer better prices if you go down that route

[Deleted User]

Huskyrunner wrote: »

re book buying ziffit.com tend too offer better prices if you go down that route

Thanks Husky, I'll have a look at that website.