How do you budget?

Linton

We have expenditure records detailing most expenses of more than £10 going back to 1999. The payments are made whenever possible with a debit or credit card, the rest being treated as "cash". Every transaction is downloaded from the bank into MsMoney which automatically assigns a category based on previous history of the payee or sometimes the name of the payee (eg "xxx Restaurant"). This assignment is correct about 90% of the time. So there is no great effort maintaining the records. Then, using Ms Money, it is straight forward producing reports of annual totals, graphs of expenditure over time etc etc.

The overall retirement plan provides an annual total expenditure budget which is increased each year with CPI inflation. Budgetting is simply a matter of continual checking of actuals against plan. Budgets at the category level could be obtained by calculating historical average %s and multiplying by the total budget, but I dont bother. Any problems are pretty obvious.

Interestingly our annual expenditure has consistently increased less than CPI inflation. There has been no attempt to actively limit expenditure as actual is generally well below plan.

moneyistooshorttomention

Personally - I dont see the point in complicating matters with spreadsheets, etc, etc.

I've got all the bills that can be spread out into monthly direct debits (ie without costing me more) on monthly direct debits. So that's fuel/broadband & phone/water/Council Tax/health insurance on monthly direct debit. The bills that are paid on an "as and when" basis are NHS bills as I call them (ie dentist/optician). Also the yearly bills of tv licence, house & contents insurance, yearly gas service.

I've got a note in a folder of what the bills that come out monthly are and a note of what the average of the yearly bills comes to monthly and mentally allocate that so to say. Then I can see what I've got left for living on/spending as I choose and those "NHS bills".

There was an expensive month recently - when I knew the NHS bills would be pretty expensive - as I replaced my set of glasses (so that was 2 pairs of glasses, 2 cheapie pairs for computer and reading and pair of prescription sunglasses). So that was probably around £500 in total - so I mentally set to one side some of "my" money in previous month or so into my bank account to allow for that expensive month.

I take Christmas and birthdays as they come - as even Christmas doesnt cost much (no children and I "dont do" Christmas basically - so just a bit extra on social life costs).

I know what date each month all the direct debits for that month have come out and what's left in my bank account at that point is "my money" to use as I decide I will. I don't have to mentally keep any back for weekly living costs out of that - as the State part of my pension comes in weekly and so there's just a maximum of 6 days to go until next tranche of that comes in. So the job pension (monthly) is used for the bills basically and the State pension is used for weekly living. Leftover money from both of them is what I've actually got to spend as I decide to (bar the odd bit that goes out on NHS bills).

RG2015

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Personally - I dont see the point in complicating matters with spreadsheets, etc, etc.

Personally, I find that spreadsheets make matters less complicated but we must choose a method with which we are comfortable.

In addition, I didn't really follow your post as it got rather complicated.

iammumtoone

I don't budget/track or plan.

Lifes too short I spend enough of my time at work doing "office" stuff I am not going to start it at home as well.

I have enough in my current account to cover all my expensives if I want to go on holiday I check if there is surplus, if there is we go, if not we either look for somewhere cheaper or don't go. I do periodically check that I am getting the best deals on broadband/insurance etc but i'm not obsessive about it.

I am willing to bet that I am like the majority of people who manage (or not as the case may be) their money this way.

When I was out of work I did keep a spreadsheet/records I enjoyed it as it became like "my job" but once I got back into work I don't need the mental stimulation of doing that anymore and it become a chore.

getmore4less

There those that use the just spent it if i have it that add the pay yourself first as the first spend.

They siphon off a wedge to cover the bigger planned things and goals and work with a smaller pot daytoday less chance of poor value as there is less to throw away.

No_6

We have 4 holidays booked, all on 0% purchase cards for 2018,
one will have extra expense's, as we are paying for our daughter/OH
G.kiddy so they can have a holiday with us.

It's all entered into my budget,. to be paid ok. with no extra interest or fees.

We/OH run multiple currents accounts and 0% purchase cards with
the odd BT transfer card included.

We....ME could never run them without a BUDGET, for future expenses
and data to show who needs paying and when 0% deals end.

We made £1200 on interest,0% cards etc etc last year.
All thanks to a budget and MS Money data.

JustAnotherSaver

Life on MSE.....

* person creates thread
* people come in trying to be clever showing where OP worded something wrong, asked something wrong, so on & so forth (basically just try & pick apart the post / idea of the thread)
* some others come in with helpful responses
* more picking apart
* some more helpful responses
* others coming in for a read have to wade through the wiseguy replies.


revised edition....

* someone highlights the fact that there's many wiseguys on here
* wiseguy responds .... yeah i'm as helpful as your post!

RG2015

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

Life on MSE.....

* person creates thread
* people come in trying to be clever showing where OP worded something wrong, asked something wrong, so on & so forth (basically just try & pick apart the post / idea of the thread)
* some others come in with helpful responses
* more picking apart
* some more helpful responses
* others coming in for a read have to wade through the wiseguy replies.


revised edition....

* someone highlights the fact that there's many wiseguys on here
* wiseguy responds .... yeah i'm as helpful as your post!

Are you commenting on this thread in particular?

I agree that what you say does happen on some threads but this one has some excellent comments and nothing particular to cause any concern as far as I can see.