Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Hi BaileysBabe, Am now back from our short break & will try to answer your question about savings pots/spends tracking.
I do all the budgeting for our household tho mr f is very much on board with it - we both used to be big bad spenders back in the day.
Right, savings pots. I pay into our emergency fund each month as a regular standing order - not as much as I'd like but hope to increase when the mortgage is paid off. We don't have a lot of 'spare' money once all our bills & essentials have been paid for, but I do find it useful to have 'pots' for various categories, otherwise it's difficult to track how much of our 'spare' money each month is being spent on what.
So I have 6 Savings Piggies, which are just envelopes & each month I divide roughly £200 between them at whatever ratio I think appropriate. These 6 pots are Car, Clothes, Holidays, Leisure/Entertainment, Presents & Household. Once a pot has built up to a certain level, I don't add to it for a while. i.e If our Clothing Piggy has £100 in it & neither of us need anything, I will choose to divert its share that month to a different pot. But if I knew mr f was soon needing new DMs or I would need a winter coat that year, then I'd keep paying in. £200 isn't a huge amount of money to divide between so many categories but we still find this system works for us. A car service may cost more than we have in the Car Piggy, but having £100 or £150 cash towards it feels a very positive thing. I only put £20 a month in the Leisure Piggy as we both have a set amount of 'Personal Spends' each month too, but just that £20 can be so useful - we both like classical concerts & £20 will pay for two tickets. It can also be saved up towards something bigger like festival tickets or used for a nice meal out while we are off in our tent.
I find this system does make me more conscious of what funds are actually available. For instance, if I know there is only £15 left in the Household Piggy, I will often 'shop from home' or buy 1 bag of compost when I'd normally have bought 3 or 4. Before the Piggy system, I found it harder to track what our money was being spent on. I'm much more aware of it when it is cash & I think much more carefully about whether I want to take it out of its envelope & spend it.
Obviously the household pot doesn't usually build up sufficiently to cover major items of furniture etc, so we generally save up separately for those.
I can understand you wanting to track your spending. I think we both wondered initially if our system would be too restrictive but it isn't as I am flexible about what % share goes to each Piggy each month. Overall, we both agree that out current budget system facilitates us being able to do stuff, rather than restricting us. I am hoping that we may be able to pay our mortgage off next year. If this does become possible, I will be looking closely at how to add to the savings pots we already have. I have already ear-marked 'White goods replacement' & 'Tech replacement' as 2 potentially useful new funds.
Anyway, I hope this helps a little.
Just off to stir the slow cooker now - Spanish beef - it's been smelling yummy all day.
F x

foxgloves

I made a nice festive door wreath today - another thing I used to spend a tenner on. Now everything is shopped from home. The first year I made my own I did spend £2 at the pound shop though, on a pack of red baubles & some wired ribbon. If you've bought a wreath this year, or you know someone who has, save the inner wire frame - it's usually just some sort of circle with kind of clip type things round it to hold the greenery in place. Then you just need to go out with the secateurs. I don't have holly at the moment but I have a shrub which looks very similar, so I used that with plenty of ivy, a bit of spotted bay laurel & some sprays of firethorn berries. A few fir cones (picked up on walks) wired on here & there (just garden wire) plus those trusty old pound shop baubles & red ribbon & it looks really Christmassy. One year I mostly used leylandii prunings & ivy pulled off the side of the shed & it still looked festive once the cones & shiny baubles were wired on. It's a great shopping from home project & you don't need to be arty.
F x

Onebrokelady

Loving the sound of your wreath,I say I'm going to make one every year but have never actually done it,this year was definitely going to be the year but I caved and bought one in the end,it's real one made with olive leaves and big bunches of berries and was £6.50 from my farmers market so I did at least support a local business
It's very lazy of me because I have all the ingredients either here in my garden or in the lane behind my house, we even have holly so there is no excuse, next year I am definitely going to make my own

joeyjimbles

I was faffing about on the computer and now I'm galvanised. I have a fake fir tree wreath sitting in the dining room just waiting to be adorned. I bought it 15 years ago and it gets trotted out every year. So I'm going to do it now - before the second cup of coffee.

Baileys_Babe

Onebrokeblady
Like you every year I plan to do one for our front door, yet I never get around to it. What is even worse is a couple of years ago I attended a workshop which demonstrated how to make one even without the frame Foxgloves mentioned.

Baileys_Babe

Foxgloves Thank you for your reply. I appreciate the details, they will help me with planning our own system.
I was thinking of more categories than you currently have, I like the idea of both a tech and white goods replacement funds.
I need to get back to having a grocery budget and tracking our spends, we are not going wild but there is room for improvement, which should free up some pennies to feed a pot or two.
I have also decided to get back into doing surveys, this was always a good way in the past to pay for days out and other treats.

foxgloves

You're welcome, Bailey'sBabe. Yes, we could defo do with a white goods replacement & tech replacement pot, so we are definitely going to re-look at everything next year, when due to this year's sad circumstances, we are likely to experience a little bit of an upturn in our financial situation. I can't think about it yet, as it's too soon, but it will be an opportunity to re-assess how we do things financially as a household. It took me a few failed attempts initially to find a system which worked for us, but I think you are right that it is worth revisiting things every so often to see if anything's slipping, or could work more effectively.
Re surveys - I like to track my income from those in my signature & as you can see, I have broken the £400 mark this year, for the first time. I certainly don't do surveys every day - too boring - but you're right that it is useful income for little extras, gifts & treats. I will soon have another £20 to add to this year's total as I have cashed out on Ipsos for 2 Waterstones vouchers. I'm currently having a break from Toluna. They have been quite good earnings in the past, but I am really getting fed up with being emailed survey links that are supposed to be screened for relevance to me & then when I attempt them, they are anything but, as are about smoking or children, & they know from all the profiling info they have on me that these are completely irrelevant categories for me. Also, I was finding increasingly that even if I got onto the link instantly, the survey would already be full up, or worse, would decide it was full up after I'd wasted time on it, so I am currently concentrating on Ipsos, Prolific Academic, YouGov & Onepoll. I've also been recruited for 3 different brand panels this year - one is just finishing, but earned me a definite £5 voucher every month for not a lot of work & the other two award points which can be collected for Amazon or John Lewis vouchers. If I'm looking to save up for something in particular, I may return to Toluna - I've kept my account, but am having a break from it for now.
F x

foxgloves

Re Christmas door wreaths - OBL & everyone else. Yes, MAKE ONE!! If you've bought one for this year, after Twelfth Night, have a good look at the construction of it, under all the foliage. It is likely to be either something covered in moss or similar, or (more likely, as I suspect it's cheaper to produce) one of the stiff wire circles with the regular fittings every few inches to hold the foliage in. If there's anything on your bought wreath you can recycle - sometimes you get fir cones with or without silver or gold spray, or fake red berries, a bow or other bits & bobs. Save anything you think you might use again, & for everything else, either collect some fir cones when you are out & about over the year, & shop from home or the £ shop for a few baubles which you don't mind getting rained on & blown about a bit on your front door. I promise you they are not difficult to make.
Have got 3rd batch of fudge just setting before cutting it up & making it look pretty for a gift - one last batch to make, then that will probably be it until Easter - or somebody's birthday. I sometimes take it if we're invited over to somebody's house for dinner too, as it makes a change from a bottle or flowers & it is nice to share with a coffee afterwards.
Right, enough internet.......rest of my job list here I come!
Cheers all,
F xx

joedenise

Baileys_Babe wrote: »

Foxgloves Thank you for your reply. I appreciate the details, they will help me with planning our own system.
I was thinking of more categories than you currently have, I like the idea of both a tech and white goods replacement funds.
I need to get back to having a grocery budget and tracking our spends, we are not going wild but there is room for improvement, which should free up some pennies to feed a pot or two.
I have also decided to get back into doing surveys, this was always a good way in the past to pay for days out and other treats.

I use the old version of YNAB but there is a new web based version which you can use free for 34 days, might be worth downloading it (even if you don't use it!) as it will give you loads of idea for categories (or pots) which you might find useful - I certainly do. I've stuck to the old version as it was a one off price and the new one is a monthly subscription.

Good luck with setting up your pots.

Denise

determined_new_ms

had to pop over and see what this discussion was about! BB I cannot really get my oh on board with budgeting the way I do, so we have separate bank accounts (he says I'm too controlling!) and a joint account which I solely manage. I run a surplus of about £100 a month in there which I let build up and we use these funds for any household expenses and generally save it for a year or two and then have something done to the house that needs doing. Last year we had our patio done. In the NY we will be running it down to decorate a few rooms.

Budgeting I have the following *pots* xmas, xmas food (this was the first year and funded solely from monthly interest in our bank accs ), birthdays/gifts, car, holidays, emergencies (I keep this at £1000 whenever I use it, which is rare, I refund it at £20pm) madam's child benefit (I buy 95% of the things she needs with her cb and then put the rest in to the account), madam's activities.

I gotta say for the 2nd or 3rd year running this time of year, while exhausting with all the EXTRA. THINGS. TO. DO. It's not a worry financially. In terms of my bank account it's just another normal month and Christmas has cost me £37.50 out of this month's pay cheque (the same as every other month )