Using bank card - help?!

abby1234519

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

I would withdraw weekly rather than monthly. If you go mad and blow it all in the first week then you will be tempted to use the card as three weeks a long time. Alternatively divide the £100 immediately into 4 lots of £25

Agree - if I withdraw £200 to last a month...it won't

So £30 weekly works and cards stay at home in a jar

Poppy3008

I think I will start doing this - weekly envelopes. I am horrendous at overspending and it's the card use which does it (and my lack of self control perhaps). Cash only and when it's gone it's gone.

nkkingston

Just remember to bear in mind cost of living rises, depending on when you last stuck to this budget. If you find you can't stick to £25 a week, check why: is it because you're spending on off list items, or is it because the on list items have got more expensive?

The_Debt_Expert

If you set yourself £25/week, '5 week months' don't matter because you're already budgeting weekly.

In reality though there's no such thing as '5 week months' - it's a bit of a myth. Every month apart from February has 30 or 31 days.

Another myth related to this is that 4 weeks is a month. i.e. people would allocate £100/month aside if it was £25/week, when that's actually £109/month.

wannabe_sybil

I was taught that if you had to convert weeks into months ie if you wanted to know how much you got paid per month and you were paid £10 per week then you multiplied the week amount by 4.3 - £10 per week, £43 per month. £100 per month was £23.26 per month.

hth

EssexHebridean

The_Debt_Expert wrote: »

If you set yourself £25/week, '5 week months' don't matter because you're already budgeting weekly.

In reality though there's no such thing as '5 week months' - it's a bit of a myth. Every month apart from February has 30 or 31 days.

Another myth related to this is that 4 weeks is a month. i.e. people would allocate £100/month aside if it was £25/week, when that's actually £109/month.

With the way I budget for my personal spending, there are indeed 4 and 5 week months. I take out a set amount per week, OR top my purse back up to that set amount if I have money left over. However I have the same amount of spending money each calendar month. I budget per weekend, so sometimes there will be 5 that the money needs to cover, and sometimes 4. It does very much depend on how someone budgets, and how they find it easiest to think about it. If you always shop on a saturday for example, the straight "weeks" might work best - and as long as the person concerned is forward-thinking, it doesn't really matter, if it helps them to understand and deal with things.

sourcrates

lisa110rry wrote: »

Back in 1977 when I came to this country, in my first job (technically started in January 1978) my salary was £21 per week. My one responsibility was for the supermarket shopping. My husband was a shift worker which meant that on the evenings that he was working at tea time, I could just have a couple of oat cakes and a little bit of cheese for tea, whereas on other evenings, it would be a full evening meal for us.

I was paid weekly in cash, and would take a calculator around the supermarket with me making a running total of the cost of purchases after work on pay day.:)

edit: I also took a shopping list and bought nothing that wasn't on it!

My dear departed mum used to do exactly the same thing.

Money was tight back then, and credit cards in general were unheard of, if you didnt have the money, you didnt get it, it was that simple.

Mind you things were a lot cheaper in the 70`s, i remember a bag of chips from the chippy being 5p, now there what, £2 ? imagine that eh kids !!!

Thats inflation for ya !!

PixelPound

Do you have a smartphone? Just there are lots of free budget tracking apps, so if you prefer plastic to cash (e.g. fall into the money burns a hole in your pocket type) then so long as you are able to log each spend (which can take a lot of resolve) you can keep to budget. Its also great for seeing where your money goes.

theoretica

If you don't want to be without your card in case of real emergencies then you could seal it in an envelope so it is with you, but not to be used.