Where are posts about budgeting?

Herbyme

I am very interested in budgeting but this forum seems to be mainly about bank accounts, should I be looking somewhere else for budgeting? I can't believe no one else is interested in it so I assume maybe it's somewhere else?

Apologies in advance if it's a stupid question!

lindens

yes you are in the wrong part of the forum
Old style moneysaving is a good place to start, or debt free wannabe too

Herbyme

lindens wrote: »

yes you are in the wrong part of the forum
Old style moneysaving is a good place to start, or debt free wannabe too

Thank you! I was confused by the title of this part of the forum!:rotfl:

RG2015

carolinerunner wrote: »

I am very interested in budgeting but this forum seems to be mainly about bank accounts, should I be looking somewhere else for budgeting? I can't believe no one else is interested in it so I assume maybe it's somewhere else?

Apologies in advance if it's a stupid question!

lindens wrote: »

yes you are in the wrong part of the forum
Old style moneysaving is a good place to start, or debt free wannabe too

carolinerunner wrote: »

Thank you! I was confused by the title of this part of the forum!:rotfl:

I am also interested in budgeting and have posted here before on this. I have never visited the other two boards mentioned by lindens.

In my opinion the budgeting & bank account board is indeed the correct place to post about budgeting.

That said, budgeting is a very ambiguous term and does depend on the purpose of the budgeting process.

MSE used to have an excellent budgeting tool but this was discontinued a few months ago. Nevertheless, the main site is a good place to go and I have inserted a link below.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/Budget-planning/

The Money Advice Service does have an active budgeting tool and I have also inserted a link for this.

https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/tools/budget-planner

carolinerunner, if you post again here I will respond and if you have a specific issue I am sure others will as well. Finally, I have inserted links to some previous budgeting posts.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=6063130&highlight=budget

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=6045844&highlight=budget

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5917782&highlight=

dreaming

carolinerunner wrote: »

Thank you! I was confused by the title of this part of the forum!:rotfl:

Yes I have often wondered about the budgeting part of the title. I think the MSE site is so big now that many parts of it have lost their original meaning, and fora/threads often overlap. I still find it interesting and educational though and often wander round different threads if I have nothing better to do. Even those posts that some consider "trolls" sometimes manage to impart some piece of knowledge that I can go away and expand upon.

Ben8282

What information about budgeting are you seeking exactly? Perhaps if you were to start an appropriate thread ….

RG2015

Ben8282 wrote: »

What information about budgeting are you seeking exactly? Perhaps if you were to start an appropriate thread ….

The OP already did this in October. I think this is just a general enquiry.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=6062493

She has a point and the issue of combining budgeting and bank accounts has been questioned in the past.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5759870

Herbyme

Thank you for all the useful comments and links, much appreciated. You're right RG2015, I'm looking for general advice and inspiration. I go through phases of trying to be very rigorous about budgeting, managing and controlling my finances, and at other times I just spend without thinking about it. I'm in the fortunate position of earning enough to do that at least sometimes, but then it means I don't have the savings I'd like to have and I wonder where all my money's gone.

So I'm in a 'get control' phase atm and I'm trying to make it a habit, hence my interest in how other people budget, what tools they use, what habits they have, how often and how they keep track of their spending etc. I have made some progress over the last month or so, including not spending at all on my credit card. It's one less place to download data from, and it makes sorting out transfers between accounts simpler.

I've found that banking apps make a huge difference to my motivation to stay in control, checking daily (first thing, then often multiple times) really helps me focus on what's coming in and going out. I'm self employed so the money in is random, it does always come in but in very odd amounts, so I'm now working on a salary system where I have a separate account for spending (not bills) which I pay a 'salary' into on 1st of each month. That comes from the account that my payments go into. There's then another transfer into an account that my direct debits come out of, so I don't have to keep track of which has/hasn't come out of my account at any given point in the month. I scrape what I can out of both current accounts into savings - I HATE taking money out of savings so it makes me think twice before buying something that would mean taking money out of savings.

What I don't yet have is a place to keep money for those expenses which aren't monthly or predictable but which I need to budget for, eg car repairs, holidays, vets bills. I've got a spare savings account which I don't use, maybe I should transfer a monthly amount into that and have it on stand by to cover those kinds of expenses. I've now put 5 months of spending on Excel and analysed the spending by category (mostly - what category does a harmonica go in?!) so I can start to see how the one-off spends work out as monthly averages.

That's as far as I've got for now. I was actually excited today to download my November data and analyse it in Excel. Still grappling with how to deal with payments between accounts, but am refining my system as I go.

Any other thoughts most welcome, TYIA!

annabanana82

I've often thought the same, I'd thought of doing my SOA not because I'm in debt but I'm interested in trying to make the best of my money and putting that on the DFW board seems a little crass maybe?
I shall take a look at the links provided above

RG2015

carolinerunner

Your first paragraph reminded me about this thread.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=6052316&highlight=life

I used to fall into the trap of budgeting for its own sake rather than to achieve a specific goal. In the end I was great at budgeting and ended up with a load of money and nothing to do with it.

enthusiasticsaver

You are in the right place but budgeting is addressed in DFW as well. Not sure about OS Money saving as not strayed over there.

There are lots of ways people budget from good old fashioned pen and paper to budgeting software like YNAB and Clear Checkbook. There are spending tracker apps you can put on your phone and if there are two of you they can sync which may be helpful. Lots of us use excel spreadsheets too.

I will share my budgeting knowledge with you and have budgeted like this or similar for many years.

On payday (which I never anticipate) I add up income and divide the income as follows. Four budgeting categories. Food, Entertainment and eating out, Diesel and Travel and Direct Debits/standing orders. We also have personal spending each (DH and I) which goes into separate personal accounts and the rest is divided up among virtual envelopes.

Some people keep those in separate savings accounts or if you have as we do a current account which pays interest you can keep it in there and record this on a spreadsheet. The envelopes are Gifts, Car, House, Holidays and Emergency fund. Our emergency fund is full so in reality the envelope money is just split between the four envelopes. So if we have a birthday heavy month or Christmas the money is in the envelope, Same goes for car expenses or like this month we have a boiler service and house insurance in the same month but we have money sitting in our house envelope to pay for it. The holidays envelope is worked out by dividing the cost of our holiday between the number of months before we need pay for it. We also keep a buffer in there to pay for weekends away.

The key is planning and being aware where your money goes. I use clear checkbook to keep on top of the monthly budget so I know at any one time how much is left in the eating and entertainment budget for example. The budgets reset on the 1st of every month and any surplus or deficit at the end of the month either comes out of an envelope or goes into one.

Hope this helps.