Paper or online - which is better? Looking to improve my financial situation.

JordanJamesMatta88

I understand its down to preference but does anyone have any advice on budgeting. I'm trying to figure out what is better:
Excel budget vs written down on paper
Using bank card or cash 'envelopes'? (I think theyre called from research).

MaryLongstaff

You're right it is preference - why not try both? Either at the same time or one at a time to get a taster for which you prefer. 
Pros and cons vary in different situations (there are lots but i'll give two examples) - if income is flexible and quantities are always changing than online might be better. But if you're struggling for motivation then a visual paper aid may benefit. 

colsten

Whatever works best for you. Nothing is a magic bullet. All methods will work as well as you make them work. Having said this, I would be lost without AceMoney.

eskbanker

JordanJamesMatta88 said:

I understand its down to preference but does anyone have any advice on budgeting. I'm trying to figure out what is better:
Excel budget vs written down on paper
Using bank card or cash 'envelopes'? (I think theyre called from research).

My strong preference is Excel instead of paper - far easier to make adjustments and model impacts, and also to load up actual spend data for analysis.  You can always print it if you choose!

Likewise card instead of cash is much more trackable, and access to, and use of, cash continues to decline....

RG2015

I have one main Excel spreadsheet for my cashflow. Each sheet is a month with columns for each bank account and rows for every day that has any transactions.

I create a new sheet for every new month from the previous month and insert any regular and projected income and expenditure. This is much the same each month and I just need to change to dates to the new month.

As a result, I have a monthly history and monthly projection which in practice goes forward three or four months.

MovingForwards

I have a spreadsheet for my income and outgoings. It's set up over Christmas for the following 12 months.
Another one for my savings, pensions, retirement pots and mortgage.

I also have a little book for my pensions and mortgage, not sure why but I do like picking it up; I also prefer physical books compared to eBooks, but happily surf the net.

Pre-covid I would also pay cash for shopping, petrol, general spends etc and have recently reverted back to it with some shops.

There's no right or wrong way, it's whatever works for you.

RG2015

MovingForwards said:

I have a spreadsheet for my income and outgoings. It's set up over Christmas for the following 12 months.
Another one for my savings, pensions, retirement pots and mortgage.

I also have a little book for my pensions and mortgage, not sure why but I do like picking it up; I also prefer physical books compared to eBooks, but happily surf the net.

Pre-covid I would also pay cash for shopping, petrol, general spends etc and have recently reverted back to it with some shops.

There's no right or wrong way, it's whatever works for you.

I have a NatWest credit card that gives me 1% back on all supermarket shopping and 0.25% on everything else. I get at least £5 per month and often over £10 in a month. There is a fee but that gets refunded if I have a reward current account which also earns me a further £3 net each month.

I also get up to 56 days from each purchase to having to pay off the card each month. And finally, I don’t have the bother of withdrawing and holding cash.

PS. To get back to this thread, my credit card statement records all spend by retailer which I download into a spreadsheet. I now have almost 10 years of data on this.

Ballard

I genuinely don't mean this is an aggressive way. Keeping track of finances is a good thing to do but I don't feel the need. I don't spend money wantonly and don't get close to spending my salary every month. On payday I transfer the excess to a savings account and transfer some back as and when required. I do have some large bills coming up but I've been aware of them for some time and have the funds available. My monthly spend isn't smooth. This month, for instance, I've bought a few theatre tickets (although I did have a lot of credit with various theatres so the cash expenditure wasn't what it could have been).

My question is, what do people do with their projections? Do you use it to change your spending habits? Does it stop you spending?

I feel that I should repeat that this isn't meant as a judgement. Everyone should do as they feel best for them. I'm just curious. I rarely feel the need to look back to see what I spent my money on the previous month let alone ten years.

Edit: it's probably worth me pointing out that I do have a spreadsheet for my mortgage which projects the balance over time so I'm definitely not against financial planning.

RG2015

Ballard said:

I genuinely don't mean this is an aggressive way. Keeping track of finances is a good thing to do but I don't feel the need.

My question is, what do people do with their projections? Do you use it to change your spending habits? Does it stop you spending?

Before I started, I was paranoid about where all the money went. I was earning well above the average, not spending extravagantly, but never had much left at the end of the month. After recording everything and analysing it, we found we were spending less and were able to start saving.

I find it helps to examine historical spending to help to project future requirements.This is true of both regular items and one-off items. I remember I bought my car the day after the Brexit vote, but I can check my spreadsheets for everything else.

Ballard

Thanks RG. I can see the logic in that. I feel that by keeping tabs on my spending every day I am alert enough to my spending patterns all the time that I'm working. Perhaps once I either retire or heaven forbid am out of work I may want to have more control.

RG2015

Ballard said:

Thanks RG. I can see the logic in that. I feel that by keeping tabs on my spending every day I am alert enough to my spending patterns all the time that I'm working. Perhaps once I either retire or heaven forbid am out of work I may want to have more control.

I was much the same as you when I was working but initially was not even keeping tabs. Getting married changed that and we got better but as I approached retirement I felt I needed to step up a gear. The historical spreadsheets only date back to my retirement ten years ago. I was able to recreate the previous ten years at a very high level, cars, house improvements etc but no low level detail such as holidays, furniture, house repairs. I do know that I got a shock when I managed to reduce my home insurance from a £900 quote from my existing one to £300 after shopping around.

Fast forward to today and I am saving significantly more on half the annual income. I can only speculate how much more I might have saved had I started the spreadsheets ten years earlier.