Advice/tips wanted for organisation

stinabean

Hi all
I'm back at work after maternity leave and now have childcare to pay for with my OH.
I'm trying desperately to organise our finances so I don't have to sit and do sums every few weeks and work out what to do each time.

I know that we can afford it (just) and have minimised outgoing as much as currently possible, I just wondered if there are some good methods for organising separate wages paying the same bills and organising the spending money left over.

Hope this makes sense, thanks in advance for any help!

eskbanker

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/Budget-planning/ has a variety of tips, tools and techniques that may be of assistance....

xylophone

organising separate wages paying the same bills and organising the spending money left over.

Do you mean that you want to set up a joint account into which you each pay a certain amount of salary to cover household bills and childcare?

Terry_Towelling

Make use of the tools suggested but I still think you should still do your sums every so often or you may not notice if something changes and needs further attention.

Probably best to start by identifying exactly when payments go out and wages come in so you can understand your cash flow. A simple spreadsheet showing how your money moves up and down during the month will get you well on the way to understanding how to organise things - and project your plans as far into the future as you can.

Consider whether it is better to use a credit card for all non-direct-debit spending (to defer outgoings for a few weeks and package them into a single outgoing payment) and clear it in full each month, rather than depleting available cash during the month with a debit card.

Xylophone's mention of a joint account for all 'joint' spending is worthy of investigation. We do that. We totted up our annual spending on all stuff and between us put a twelfth of that in to a joint account each month (plus a bit extra to start it off and to cover any uneven/irregular spending events - e.g. car servicing).

Also get your OH involved - and do you really think you are going to have any spending money left over now?:)

stinabean

Thanks for everyones replies, and apologies for taking my time to come back to you.

I'm just a bit fed up of wages coming in to our individual accounts and then a standing order moving stuff over to the joint account for all our joint stuff (mortgage, council tax etc) and then keeping an eye on our individual money for our individual bills such as mobile phones or any subscriptions we may have.
I feel like there's an easier way and my brain's just not grabbing hold of it.

And no, I doubt I will have any free money left anymore :rotfl: but I'd like to make sure my OH does as mentally he does really well on a work hard and get a reward basis.

eskbanker

stinabean wrote: »

I'm just a bit fed up of wages coming in to our individual accounts and then a standing order moving stuff over to the joint account for all our joint stuff (mortgage, council tax etc) and then keeping an eye on our individual money for our individual bills such as mobile phones or any subscriptions we may have.
I feel like there's an easier way and my brain's just not grabbing hold of it.

If you're looking for simplicity, the easiest thing is to just use the joint account for everything and not to arbitrarily carve money up into 'yours' and 'his'.

Or if that's a step too far, you could have both wages paid into the joint account to be used for the essentials, and use standing orders the other way round to feed individual accounts that are only used for less essential stuff.