How to Log Spending

[Deleted User]

I am a bit like Greyqueen I use an A4 red book but I buy one around every 2-3 years Its lined and on the right hand page of the month I list all my outgoings and bills for the month, plus all my income take one from t'other and whats left gets moved to a savings account. I list as a food budget per month £60.00 as I live alone and I am really good about shopping for food etc .I eat out on Sunday evenings at my DDs and Tuesday evening at pub quiz (that costs me £2.00 including the quiz ,so a real bargain )Sunday dinner at DDs I usually make and take pudding for us all last sunday I made a trifle which cost very little .
I bake all my own cakes and biscuits and I don't eat or buy bread I prefer crackers .Only buy butter for baking shortbread ,so not often. I also make all my own soups as I usually have soup and crackers for lunch .Porridge for breakfast, and I suppose I spend about a third of my food budget on fruit and veg. So far this month as I have lots of left over bits from my two DDs from Christmas (they are not quite as careful as I am when it comes to food ,and know I can make something out of almost anything ) I have only actually spent around £24 odd on food ,most of which was fruit and veg. My freezer is pretty well full and I have a good stock of tins, pulses etc and a decent stock of herbs and spices I only use UHT milk and I suppose my one luxury is decent coffee, but one of my Christmas present from my eldest DD this year was a subscription to a coffee place that send you bags of different ground coffee each month from all parts of the coffee producing world so I don't need to buy coffee for a good few months.

I have a smaller book by my chair in which I list everything I buy during the week but I try to only actually food shop every 7-9 days or when I have a list of more than say ten items needed. Its quite easy habit to get into ,especially if like me you are retired so have more time on your hands for cooking or baking. Different if you have a busy family I suppose. But I bake for my DGS and family as I always have enjoyed doing it . I keep a keen eye on prices at the shops and before I go I usually check out what offers there is in MySupermarket.com first.

at the end of the month anything left over in my food purse budget gets shovelled into my holiday funds which are in a seperate account from my main account. I treat my household budgeting the same way as running a business and it seems to have worked pretty well over the past god knows how many years. I have a seperate savings account for rainy days which I have had since I was a teenager and thats a very long time ago
I have in my main purse a roughly rolling amount of around £20.00 odd which is my Happy Cash stash and that's for small treats for myself or my family if I see something thats not in the food budget . I rarely if ever eat or drink out and take aways are not for me as I can make twice as much for half the price at home (and often do )
I have a Dobbies loyalty card which costs me £10.00 a year and I get 2 hot drinks a month from that (2 coffees are about £3.00 each) so it pays for itself I also get a tew for two with two cream scones when its near to my birthday as well a great bargain I think I am slightly disabled so I have a CEA cinema card which means anyone who comes with me gets a free ticket so I usually split the price of a ticket with my friend. I think I manage my money pretty well and make every penny do the work of two as my late Mum would have said. its just a case of working out what works best for you I think. This site is a godsend to most folk I think and if you can't get the answer here then you have probably not yet asked it

JackieO xx

baggins11

JackieO I absolutely love that quote from your late mum 'make every penny do the work of two'- I will remember that when I am tempted to buy something silly!

I am starting to realise spending less will mean working less in the future so I am really determined to get better control of my spending this year.

Slinky

baggins11 wrote: »

I am honestly blown away by how good at this you all are! Lots of you have different approaches but you have developed them to work for you. I feel embarrassed that it has taken me this long to get in control of my finances. I dread to think how much money we have wasted as a family over the years!!

Thank you for opening my eyes to all the options and I am sure I will find an approach to tracking my money that works for me (and who knows I might even be able to pay a little extra into the mortgage this year!)

Rather than pay extra into your mortgage, it could be better paying some extra into your pension. You'd get a 20% tax boost on the money which is far more than the smaller amount of interest you'll save on the mortgage, with mortgage rates being so low currently.

baggins11

I hadn't thought about that Slinky!! It had occurred to me when watching Martin on TV that with overdraft rates now so high it is worth having a buffer in each account so I don't ever slip into overdraft. No point overpaying the mortgage at under 2% when the overdraft rate is 40%.

Farway

baggins11 wrote: »

I hadn't thought about that Slinky!! It had occurred to me when watching Martin on TV that with overdraft rates now so high it is worth having a buffer in each account so I don't ever slip into overdraft. No point overpaying the mortgage at under 2% when the overdraft rate is 40%.

Wise words, clear the overdraft, build up a savings buffer & then overpay mortgage.


I overpaid my mortgage, when rates were above 10%, and cleared it early. Once the mortgage is gone it is whole new world of finance when your home is no longer at risk & you have umpteen ex mortgage pounds "spare" every month

fidgetgreen

i use an app called "fast budget" its really good, lets you put in reoccuring income and expenses and you can changes a lot of catergories and have different accounts. having it on my phone means i always use it and you can export excel spreadsheets as well.

jammy_dodger

Nonnadiluca wrote: »

I use Spending tracker, a free app, on my phone: you can set up as many different'accounts' as you like - eg I have 'joint account', a 'shopping' account, a 'personal spends' account. Because it's on my phone I always have it with me and enter things immediately rather than waiting til I get home (and forgetting!) As it's free, it's worth a go to see how you get on with it. I use the one that is a brown wallet.

I've downloaded this app too after trying several others
really easy to use and be interesting to see where ££'s go over a month/year
really like you can add your own categories