yearly expenses

dd95

what pots do people use for things like holidays, birthdays, xmas etc?

Currently have a marcus account and pay around 200 a month in for the above in addition to my emergency fund and s and s ISA - do you do similar or just take from investment accounts?

Alexland

dd95 said:

what pots do people use for things like holidays, birthdays, xmas etc?

Honestly I don't bother and just pay such costs out of normal monthly income, 0% credit cards or the cash in various 'best rates I can find' savings accounts. I would never want to withdraw from ISAs while still earning. We always have enough cash sloshing around to fully repay the credit cards plus a rough extra fixed amount for emergencies. Having a few percent as cash isn't harming our investment returns.

dunstonh

what pots do people use for things like holidays, birthdays, xmas etc?

I dont operate pots with the exception of having separate savings accounts for tax and personal use overall.

Alistair31

Birthdays and Xmas from current account but I put a regular amount into my Marcus account ever month on pay day to cover car expenses and holidays. The holiday fund is looking pretty healthy, for obvious reasons. 

Apodemus

Physically I have nearly everything for expenditure in the one pot, but it is all pre-allocated to particular expenses, with monthly top-ups to each sub-fund and a record of balances.  Once a year I check that the monthly top-up is 1/12 of the annual expenditure and adjust as necessary (I always round-up, so there is normally a bit of lee-way in each fund).

MK62

dd95 said:

what pots do people use for things like holidays, birthdays, xmas etc?

Currently have a marcus account and pay around 200 a month in for the above in addition to my emergency fund and s and s ISA - do you do similar or just take from investment accounts?

I currently use a Marcus account and spreadsheet to do the "pots" bit......however it looks like I might be moving my current acct to Virgin which links a savings acct paying the same rate as Marcus, which apparently has a pots feature.
I find it harder to budget properly without using "pots".......they give me a better idea of what I can spend on what.......

Stubod

No specific account pots for anything, but I have various budget categories allocated on my spreadsheet.

chockydavid1983

I just have all these 'pots' plus emergency fund in the account with the best rate possible

Linton

I dont use expenditure pots at all.  Expenditure is managed by keeping detailed categorised records (updated mostly automatically every week) on everything we spend.  It is easy to check if the total is beyond plan or excess is being spent in particular areas.

thegentleway

Linton said:

I dont use expenditure pots at all.  Expenditure is managed by keeping detailed categorised records (updated mostly automatically every week) on everything we spend.  It is easy to check if the total is beyond plan or excess is being spent in particular areas.

How do you do it automatically?

Lumiona

Like the above posters, I run a complex spreadsheet. It contains a spending tracker and cashflow. I have few surprises when it comes to expenditure.