Quick budgeting question.

Bendy1224

Hello, 

just a quick question I thought to ask as it’s been on my mind for a while now, but just haven’t had time to log on and post it. 

When spending cash for food, do I take that out my food budget? 

At the minute I have my food transactions budgeted separately which I use my card for, and my cash, I budget that under Atm. 

Hope I am making sense. Apologies to anyone who don’t quite understand what I’ve posted here. 

Ben ... :-)

RG2015

It is your choice but it is best to be consistent for it to have any meaning. If your cash amounts are small then it probably won’t matter.

If you review your spending and have large amounts under cash and cannot remember what you spent it on you may wish to have subdivisions for your cash budget.

Many years ago I recorded all of my cash payments in a notebook for a month. It was a pain but gave me a surprising insight into my spending patterns. I hardly ever use cash now so it is easier to budget. I find Google Pay an excellent way to record my small transactions.

colsten

If you want to track all your spending on food, you would of course have to track all methods of payment.

If you have one budget category called ‘food’, and one called ‘cash’, you might have to move money from ‘cash’ to ‘food’, to avoid double-counting.

A cleaner approach could be to have separate budgets, for example:
1 - Food (debit card)
2 - Food (cash)
3 - Food (credit card)
4 - Cash (everything but food)

An easier option could be to just always buy all food by card 😀

MisterMotivated

It shouldn't really matter how you pay for the food, just how much you paid for it.  What do you use the cash/atm budget money for?  It doesn't seem particularly descriptive

Reg_Smeeton

I have a spreadsheet category for discretionary spending. If I withdraw £10 from an ATM I update that line in spreadsheet with -£10 regardless of whether I have actually spent the tenner or not yet, it gets too complicated otherwise!

ischris85

I have a spreadsheet with days of the month. Every day I input how much I spent on food. PM if you'd like me to send you a template.

colsten

Be careful accepting spreadsheets from random strangers. Spreadsheets can contain viruses and malware.

DCFC79

ischris85 said:

I have a spreadsheet with days of the month. Every day I input how much I spent on food. PM if you'd like me to send you a template.

Would be better if you were to screenshot it and host it using for example imgur.

ischris85

Link to screenshot of template as suggested - https:// imgur. com/mXT182M (remove spaces)

DCFC79

https://m.imgur.com/mXT182M
Link

DCFC79

ischris85 said:

I have a spreadsheet with days of the month. Every day I input how much I spent on food. PM if you'd like me to send you a template.

Do you find this works ?

 Ive got a spreadsheet setup but it doesnt go into that much detail, it will list what I spend on certain bills eg utilities, its pretty much like a spend breakdown on a soa, it will also tell me what I should have left every month once bills etc are paid for.

Ill be interested to give it a go.