Getting shot of the mortgage sooner than 2049!

Bluegreen143

@KajiKita one thing I forgot to say, is you need to reconcile regularly and check the amount in your accounts & purse adds up to what your pots say you should have. 

Not sure how you do this exactly on a spreadsheet, but if you don’t reconcile and just leave it for ages inevitably you forget some transactions and over time your budget gets more and more inaccurate. At the very least you need to do this at month end (in this case I’d keep some money in a pot for budget fixing so you don’t need to track down every transaction which is wrong), but I find doing it every few days or even daily is much better.

badmemory

A spreadsheet is easy.  I've been running one for over 10 years.  I do the first section as the 12 months as it really is, which starts off as what I expect it to be.  The 3rd section is what I expect it to be & the second section is the difference between the 2.  So when you start off the year section 2 should all be zeroes, & section 3 should never change.  Unless of course you do something that needs a loan or similar.  In the totals I also include as part of the totals expected income & calculate bank balance.

Because I have income coming in at different times of the month I also run a predicted bank balance.  The biggest difficulty is the annual things you tend to forget but that applies to any system you use & once it gets onto the spreadsheet it is there ready to adapt for the next year.  I made the mistake of looking at one of my old spreadsheets the other day from 2013 & realised that my outgoings are now more than double, I just wish my income was.

joedenise

I've been using the old YNAB4 since 2014 and would be lost without it - if it ever decides to stop working I'll have to move to the online version and pay for it!  I reconcile once a month when my bank statements, and credit card statements.  These all come in at different times but it works for me.  I have 2 bank accounts with savings accounts attached, 3 credit cards (2 of which only get used on holidays abroad as there are no charges and are paid off every month) so generally it's just 3 accounts to reconcile so not as bad as it sounds.

I add my transactions whenever money gets spent so a few minutes at a time and then maybe 10 minutes each time statements come in - probably about 30 or so minutes a month.

I gave up on using spreadsheets when I found out about YNAB - I'm not very good with spreadsheets now even though I used to use them all the time when working!  YNAB is so much simpler as all calculations are done for you.

Debsnewbudget

I use a free app called Good Budget
you set it up with all regular payments and then I add each day what I have spent in each category.
with it being free you cannot get too many categories but it seems to work for me.

badmemory

Its good there are so many different ways to do this as some suit the way your brain works more than others.  I certainly couldn't contemplate paying for it, but then my spreadsheet has worked for a very long time before I had even heard of YNAB or even this site for that matter. 

My first one started when I realised that my DS was never leaving home & was earning more than me & I was not that far off retirement.  So I started with a housekeeping one because I hadn't really tracked what was my personal v house expenses.  Then he paid half of food energy gardening (since he wasn't going to mow the lawn) rates & the like.  His contribution has now dropped seriously as he is currently no longer able to work. 

I still keep the budget to avoid a savings drop because he will need them as I think it unlikely he will ever be able to work again.  That sounded a bit like a pity party but really isn't.  It just shows that whatever happens in your life a proper budget is necessary & helps you cope when things change.

Bluegreen143

It’s so useful to hear all the different ways people do their budgets 🙂

I am ok with spreadsheets but YNAB is worth the fee for me, it’s so easy and it’s definitely forced me to think very differently about money. But if a spreadsheet works and saves you the fee for YNAB that’s great. 

I’ve dabbled in various free apps before but never found one which suits me.

@badmemory I’m sorry your son is unwell. As you say, having a good budget in place before you really need it makes such a difference if you do hit hard times. 

Having a lovely morning again today, got some tidying done then all four of us spent a while making a marble run - we have a box with two of the wooden Lidl marble runs combined and loads of wood offcuts and little wooden blocks so we can make it bigger and higher and tweak the height more precisely 😆 it’s been in the outhouse for about a year or more so the children had forgotten all about it and are loving it now. Actually it’s probably the first time Bambi has actually played with it.

Dinner tonight is antipasti bits and bobs, but I need to make some bread as we ate the nice baguettes I’d got for it (we used them for Fridays hot dogs as the hot dog buns were mouldy 🙄). Better go and do that now!

Bluegreen143

Poor Monkey is off school sick today so he’s missing his school party day. He’s got a sore stomach and won’t eat, but no fever or vomiting - hoping he’s better tomorrow and can go back in 🤞🏼 they have the panto tomorrow and it’s also Bambi’s nursery show which I want to go to…

Got a really important meeting in a bit so I feel really guilty that I’m not focused on looking after Monkey, TV babysitter for him 🙈😭 this is the bit I really miss from being a SAHM, not having conflicting priorities.

It’s never ending with the sickness these past few months 🤦‍♀️ never experienced it this bad since I became a parent! 

QueenJess

Oh no, I hope he gets better soon. There’s so much stuff going around at the moment.

beanielou

Hope meeting goes well & Monkey is on the mend soon. 

Sarahwithlove

I do miss ynab but struggle to justify the fee for myself when I have a spreadsheet that I can do it just as easy on. If I had a family and more expenses and types of income then I would definitely pay out for it.