Keeping out of debt

Sncjw

Right so I have bought a home with my partner and I have recorded our spending in a book. Also set bills and our incomes. 

We agreed to split the bills in half and put money into a joint account. Now I have two current accounts too and savings account. Now he has his current account and joint account. 

How do you record your spends do you record everything you both spend and to make sure there is enough money. We are in the middle of doing the house up to our liking. We have made sure we can pay the first and second mortgage payments as they are within two weeks of each other. I get paid at the end of the month and he gets paid the middle.  I have recorded income from my pay day so we do have some money from last month as a buffer. 

He is a type of guy who panics about money but buries his head in the sand too. I am more conscious about it and I  check we have enough money to pay the bills. When I lived on my own I would check on payday I have enough money.

i do have a credit card on 0% until September 2021 that I am paying off and be able to pay more to it now my outgoings will be less once the works are done. 

Any tips how to manage our money as I want to make sure he has enough too.

CreditCardJunkie

Personally I think one person has to take charge. I have a spreadsheet for our joint account (and my current account) for income and outgoings, I update the balance and direct debts every day so I know how much is left to spend and what still has to come out. So yes there might be £400 but there's still £150 for groceries, £30 for electric etc to pay out of that

ryanm8655

I just used to be in charge. Estimate bills, add a bit more to be cautious. Adjust as necessary and split any savings/use them for a holiday or something. I also split it proportionately based on earnings, if you want to make things complicated.

E.g. 

Rent = 800
Bills = 300

Each=1100/2=550+100 (as a safety net).

monetxchange

Allocate a set budget for spending on non bill items like groceries, petrol, travel etc at the start of the month and put this in a separate day to day account for both of you to use. That way you can monitor how much is being used up and be more conscientious about how much you have left. Once it's gone, it's gone. Really helps you stick to it! This could be done by whoever gets paid first popping in their half and then it gets topped up with the other half when the other person gets paid.

I've found the method of trying to estimate how much you'll need etc and trying to spend what you think you may have left is a recipe for disaster. You'll soon get into the swing of knowing exactly how much to the penny your bills will be each month and you can money manage the rest!

findingthisdifficult

We use separate accounts for bills, spending and savings, all of our money is pooled.

I use a spreadsheet for bills, I have the exact amount of the bill, I then round them up to the nearest £1.  We both get paid on the same day, every month I check the bills, then syphon any excess money to savings/spending and debt repayments.  I check my accounts nearly every day just to see what's going on and how the month is looking, by over estimating my bills I know that there is always a small buffer in the bills account.

Naomim

We have a joint account where both our salaries are paid. I keep a spreadsheet that has our salaries, all our DD's, any payments to savings, credit cards and transfers to other places listed. Another sheet that is a running bank balance with all the pending transactions highlighted until they have left the account. We have £120 a month each for personal spends. this includes any lunches we buy whilst at work. If we want to save our money, we take packed lunch.  The bills money is kept in the joint account  alongside the money for our credit card debt payments (all on DD so nothing ever missed) with a bit of a buffer £30 - £50.  The rest is transferred over to my Monzo account where I have about 13 pots set up for lots of budgets.  Groceries, petrol, dog food, vets bills, car maintenance & tax, days out (we have two kids),  Christmas, birthdays, house insurance, clothing and Emergency Fund.  The Emergency fund is important.  Anything happens like the washing machine blowing and you have the money ready to buy another without credit.  At the end of the month, anything left over gets transferred onto my credit cards as an over-payment towards the debt.

I have been doing this successfully for the last 6 months. It took a while to sort but I check the bank account every day and know exactly what I'm expecting to have come out of the account and what should be in there.

Naomim

John_

We put more into the joint account than is needed, so it builds up over time. We’ll then use the excess for discretionary spends. 

We also each keep our own sets of current accounts for things which aren’t joint, and each take responsibility for managing our own.

I know how much these accounts build up or run down, and this is, for me, the key. If I live normally, then I have more in the accounts each month than the one before. 

Mandaloiian

It can be so hard to manage debt sometimes I’ve been struggling for years but don’t want to worry anyone which is why I try to keep a brave face but hopefully I won’t have to much longer I’ve managed to get it down to a controlled amount but at the back of my mind I worry now more then ever that il make a mistake and it’s gonna climb back up again.

jonnygee2

How do you record your spends do you record everything you both spend and to make sure there is enough money. We are in the middle of doing the house up to our liking. 

Like others here, we get paid into a joint account, and savings and household expenses are all worked through this.

We then split off the spending money - the same amount each - into our personal accounts as we find it easier to track personal spending that way.