Learning to live within my means

girlatplay

I've read on here about a lot of people who pay for ynab now because it is what works for them.

(giggling at you flouncing)

astrocytic_kitten

That’s where I’m landing right now…I have a trial of Emma right now and I like it but it doesn’t do everything I’d want, and even if it did it’s £10 per month which is only £3 less than ynab. I’m so annoyed at the way they’ve just doubled prices but for the moment it works for me. 

It’s the day to day spending where it really keeps me on track, I think after I move I might switch to something like Monzo to manage pots for that sort of thing. If that works well I might manage without spending a fortune on an app for the rest of it. 

girlatplay

Maybe you could wean yourself off it.

I looked at it briefly a couple of years ago but I've got a really good routine going that works for me and I was worried I would miss something on my spreadsheet and mess it up so I've stuck with what I know.  My salary is paid into my main current account and dd's get paid out of there.  I have different accounts for different budgets so I transfer the rest of my salary into the various accounts.  I pay everything on my credit cards and then move the cash out from the relevant account to my cc holding account.  When the cc bills come in I pay them right away.  It works for me but I'm quite strict with myself.

Blackberrycurved

I downloaded a random app which is great. It helps me see where I’m overspending every week or month you have to input everything first and I pay I think £5.99 a year to get the full thing but alongside the figures you can see graphs. It freaks me out that there’s a chunk of cheese that says coffee out which is bigger than my water bill. And I can compare from 1 year to another now I’ve been using it a while x

astrocytic_kitten

girlatplay said:

Maybe you could wean yourself off it.

I looked at it briefly a couple of years ago but I've got a really good routine going that works for me and I was worried I would miss something on my spreadsheet and mess it up so I've stuck with what I know.  My salary is paid into my main current account and dd's get paid out of there.  I have different accounts for different budgets so I transfer the rest of my salary into the various accounts.  I pay everything on my credit cards and then move the cash out from the relevant account to my cc holding account.  When the cc bills come in I pay them right away.  It works for me but I'm quite strict with myself.

That’s the thing, my current system works so well for me and is what got me out of debt and in control of my money, so the thought of changing it is quite scary…like you I have one account my salary goes into and direct debits come out of. Then I transfer monthly spending money for everything (food, cat stuff, clothes, coffees etc) into a separate account. And I have a couple other savings accounts with my bank which are regular savers where I save monthly for vet bills and home repairs. Emergency fund etc goes to either Marcus savings account or premium bonds. 

The zero-based budgeting with ynab gives me a lot of comfort but these days I mostly use it to keep track of my daily spending account and shift money between categories so I know if I’ve gone over on grocery spend I need to cut back on other stuff, so it’s possible something like Monzo would work for that to keep me on track. Maybe weaning myself off ynab can be the next step in my financial evolution 😂

Blackberrycurved said:

I downloaded a random app which is great. It helps me see where I’m overspending every week or month you have to input everything first and I pay I think £5.99 a year to get the full thing but alongside the figures you can see graphs. It freaks me out that there’s a chunk of cheese that says coffee out which is bigger than my water bill. And I can compare from 1 year to another now I’ve been using it a while x

Oh that sounds really interesting - what’s the app called? There’s so many out there to try!

girlatplay

You do sound like you have it under control.  Ynab really does sound like a great tool.

Yes @Blackberrycurved that does sound interesting.

savingholmes

I just use a spreadsheet but there are loads of apps out there

redofromstart

Merry Christmas to you.  I thought of you earlier when I accidentally triggered a £5 kindle credit for spending £15!

astrocytic_kitten

Merry Christmas redo - I thought of you last night during my annual Hogfather reread! £5 of £15 kindle spending is definitely a sign you need to buy books 😂

Happy Christmas to anyone else reading too! I’m not really feeling it this year, but I have some distinctly book-shaped packages waiting to be unwrapped tomorrow which is always a good sign.

[Deleted User]

merry xmas astrocytic!  Just caught up on your diary - well done for recognising the "off" feelings and I agree with Georgina, I think we are in a different phase of our MSE journey so need to adapt accordingly