budgeting joint account / different cards?

katie4

Hi I'm pretty new to budgeting so just after some tips/advice I guess.
My husband and i have a joint account as well as a seperate account for bills.
Thing is we are rubbish at tracking our spending, we should have a good disposable income but i can't see where this is going. I have online banking so i can see transactions but i think it is more the little things that add up.


I'm not wanting to seperate our finances but i was thinking about maybe each having seperate (monzo?) cards so once we are paid and bills covered, maybe splitting some of the remaining balance between our cards, we would leave some in our joint account too as emergency fund.


I just think this may be easier to track where our money is going. Would this work? or any other tips? thanks

MovingForwards

Take a set amount of cash out each week, when it's spent that's it until the following week. Helps you see what small things you are buying/wasting money on and soon you will find you have money in your purse still when due to withdraw your next lot of cash.

Terry_Towelling

If you are already separating out your bills (and are on the best tariffs for things like energy) then presumably, the money that you are concerned about being salted away is discretionary spend and food/petrol.

Identifying the food/petrol should be easy and it would probably be a good idea to get all that stuff viewed as bills too. Put it on a credit card so you can easily see it and break it down and clear it once a month by direct debit from your bills account.

So, does one of you drive more than the other? Does one of you drive like an idiot and waste petrol (sorry not trying to be rude)? Do either of you keep buying clothes or the latest tech? Daily coffees/snacks?

In our house we try to identify anything that is a proper expense (mortgage, council tax, energy bills, petrol, car insurance, groceries, household, water rates, TV licence, House insurance, phone, broadband etc etc etc). Once you've identified those, work on ways to reduce any that you can, or at least understand why you are paying them. Once you've done that you'll have a proper idea of what should be left. If that is disappearing, look at who is going to the pub too often and make sure that all discretionary spend is receipted and identified.

Put everything on a spreadsheet so you can actually see it all together. Do all that and you'll understand things better. You may also realise that you aren't actually wasting any money but actually having a reasonable life and a bit of fun as well.

You are right to try and build an emergency fund - perhaps view contributions to that fund as a 'bill' and therefore not something you can avoid doing.

There's no magic solution, it is just about watching what you do, recording it and analysing it. You both have to 'care' about it though. If one of you isn't committed, you'll struggle - and probably fall out.

Yellow_mango

I am going through the same process at the moment.

What I have done is to open new Starling accounts for us (personal and joint). The plan is to leave enough in the current joint account to cover bills. Everything after that goes to the Starling account. In there I have several “goals” set up to cover irregular large expenses and savings. Car, holiday, house etc. Anything large enough to throw your “usual” budget off. What’s left after that is available for spending. There is no overdraft, so when it’s gone it’s gone.

This means there is a responsibility on both of us to check the balance before spending, and to be aware for example that we will need more groceries or petrol before the end of the month.

A bonus of the Starling joint account is the instant notifications of any spending by the other person. Full transparency, and hopefully heightened awareness of spending.

It’s early days yet, but I think it will really help us.

Terry_Towelling

It should be reasonably straightforward to work out a monthly budget for petrol and groceries and move that amount somewhere safe - but still best to put as much as you can on a credit card and pay in full by direct debit when the statement comes in.

Yellow_mango

Personally I found that putting everything on a credit card and paying off monthly was not good for budgeting, or my stress levels. I found it very difficult to track or control the spending, and we were constantly reacting rather than proactively planning.

I’m sure it works well for other people, and it does offer clear potential advantages. I’ve just decided that for me, the cons outweigh the pros.

Terry_Towelling

Yellow_mango wrote: »

Personally I found that putting everything on a credit card and paying off monthly was not good for budgeting, or my stress levels. I found it very difficult to track or control the spending, and we were constantly reacting rather than proactively planning.

I’m sure it works well for other people, and it does offer clear potential advantages. I’ve just decided that for me, the cons outweigh the pros.

Understood. We budget and put everything on a spreadsheet. What gets put on the credit card is already part of the budget - it just gets taken out a month later than we make the spend. Using a credit card to defer spending also allows you to carry a month's spending as a buffer in your current account - you just have to remember not to spend it because it's earmarked for the card bill.

If keeping track of the card spending is not your forte, try the 'ring-fencing' trick. For every credit card purchase you make, transfer a like amount out of the current account and into the bills account (or a savings account or wherever you choose). By the time the bill comes in, you will have exactly the right amount saved (or in the bills account or wherever) to cover it - you can even make a bit of interest out of it.