Simple living in the country - back to basics

Cheery_Daff

Thanks greenbee, you too! 

Not done much so far. Put the heating on when I got up, and snuggled up on the sofa with the hot water bottle and Call the Midwife since then 😂 Did the budgeting, and tried to decide what to do about next year's budget - I like to have a new start for the new year, but there are different ways of doing that in YNAB and I couldn't remember how I did it last year. I think I'm going for the way that keeps all my categories, but not any of the money in them - that way I can just start from scratch with one big budget amount and reallocate (which might be pretty much exactly the same as I'll still be able to see the old way, but it does force you to reasses your priorities 😂)

Anyway, need to get a shift on. Friends who were staying tonight now aren't - they're afraid of getting snowed in. They are still coming to our band concert thing though, and so we're going to meet for tea in a pub beforehand. 

It will be a bit more spendy than them coming here - but it also means we don't have to cook or tidy up so much 😂

I do, however, need to get dressed, and figure out what I'm wearing tonight (not much choice as all black, but it'll also need to be warm!) 

Realised this morning I'd not attached the fixings onto the second blind, so there was no way of rolling it up - five min job this morning, and then I want to get on with starting the next blind.

And I want to paint my nails sparkly for tonight, so also need to get on with that 😂

And we'll need to leave at about 3.15 so haven't actually got that long! 😮

KajiKita

Can I ask for some advice on the YNAB pots? I’d like to get better at using them (I’m finding the accountability and the preallocated labelling of my funds is really helping to curb my spending) but on my spreadsheet i am finding quite difficult to manage them. I suspect this is to do with my format. 

Is your format / pots vertical or horizontal? Do you bundle and then have subcategories elsewhere e.g. car breaking down into tyres, service, MOT, tax, annual insurance  etc. Also, do you out every single spend in there (e.g. a weekly fuel top up for the car) or do you just track the things you need to accrue for such as the annual insurance cost?

I want to rebuild / restart my spending tracker over Christmas so any and all input would be most appreciated 😊

KK

Bluegreen143

@KajiKita I’m sure Cheery will post her pots on here. But I’m happy to post mine on my diary too & I’ll tag you (don’t want to take over Cheery’s!). 

YNAB is zero based budgeting do every spend comes from a category. But not all my categories I allow to build over time eg groceries & petrol get wiped every month but car insurance builds up. 

And yes, in YNAB you have category groups then sub categories within. Everyone has their own method of organising them though! 

Cheery_Daff

Hello I am very happy to answer detailed budgeting questions of course

I use the actual YNAB software/app (paid for) so it's not in a spreadsheet - not sure what you mean by horizontal or vertical pots? 

As Bluegreen says, I have categories and then subcategories, and yes, I track everything (well, the odd thing slips through unintentionally and causes me bother later, as you'll see from last week's posts ). Here's my categories (I might change some of them for the new year). I track my spends more closely than Mr Cheery's spends (he doesn't even have a smart phone, so no YNAB for him!) His all just go in one pot. 

MY SPENDS
- Slimming world
- Socialising
- Stationery
- Books
- Clothes
- Exercise
- Other things

EVERYDAY HOUSEHOLD EXPENSES
- Diesel
- Food and household
- Parking (don't spend much here, more to stop me getting lazy at work!)

JOINT TREATS
- Cafes
- Eating out
- Beer (going to get rid of this, it mostly gets bought in the supermarket and I can't be bothered separating, so it goes in with the food budget)
- Events

CHICKENS
- Food, treats, & bedding
- Vets
- Building work

MONTHLY DIRECT DEBITS
- Mortgage
- Council tax
- LPG
- Electric
- Water
- House phone and internet
- Life insurance
- Mr Cheery mobile
- My mobile
- Union fees
- Charity donation

ANNUAL BILLS - CARS
- Car insurance
- Breakdown cover
- Car tax
- MOT car 1
- MOT car 2
- Maintenance car 1
- Maintenance car 2

ANNUAL BILLS - OTHER
- TV licence
- House insurance
- Web hosting
- Mr Cheery national insurance
- YNAB subscription


GROUP MEMBERSHIPS
- group 1
- group 2
- group 3

MATCHED BETTING
- MB float (this is quite vague - just a way of accounting for the rough amount that's in the MB account - I don't change it, and just transfer positive balances in as 'inflow' each month)

GIVING
- Birthdays
- Christmas
- Postage
- Ad hoc donations

ME WORK
- Professional memberships
- Books
- Courses
- Expenses to reclaim

TRUE EXPENSES
- Replacement household stuff (eg kettle, laptop)
- Garden & land
- Home maintenance
- Dentist
- Medical
- Mr Cheery's spends
- Mr Cheery's dad

SAVINGS
- Household emergency (full)
- Car replacement (full)
- Rendering work (full
- Replacing windows (full)
- Plastering stairs (almost full)
- Bathroom work (currently empty)
- Holidays (currently empty)
- Stable roof (currently empty)
- Income replacement (for 6 months -currently empty)
- Income replacement (so I can retire when I'm 50 - currently empty )

That's it I think. Happy to answer any questions! 

KajiKita

Thank you so much @Cheery_Daff 😊

I suppose my only remaining question is do you adjust the value in each of these categories every time you do any spend of any kind? It seems quite time consuming?

KK

Cheery_Daff

Yes  I do - but it's done through an app, not adjusting an actual spreadsheet - so like this:

(Actually, I'm out and it won't post a screenshot - I'll do it later!)

Cheery_Daff

Right @KajiKita here's how you enter transactions in the app...



It remembers payees, and which account you usually take transactions for that payee from. So you're not altering a spreadsheet each time - it's effectively just like you writing it down in a spending diary (although in this case the spending diary goes and updates your spreadsheet for you 😂)

I don't always enter them when I buy things... which means later when I reconcile my bank account with what YNAB thinks is in my bank account, I have to go through the bank statement and enter a load of stray transactions to make it balance again. Obviously this is easier with the bank than with cash - MUCH easier to keep track as you go along (as with any spending diary).

I'll post another screenshot in a minute once I'm on the laptop with a cuppa.

Cheery_Daff

@KajiKita I wondered if it would be helpful if I posted my 'workflow' each month? I know @Bluegreen143 has talked about this on her diary too. We both use the YNAB software, but the method works just as well with a spreadsheet, which is what I think you're doing. 

Apologies if this is really boring and/or you already know it all I do love waffling on about budgeting as you all know

Setting up pots
So. My pots are all set up, as I listed above. For some, like the mortgage, council tax etc, I put the amount in the name of the pot itself (like I think Bluegreen showed on her budget) so I remember how much to put in the pot. For others there are goals set:

* save xx by yy date (eg car insurance, save £500 by Feb 2023, and it will tell me how much I need to put in each month, and if I pilfer any for something else, it adjusts the monthly amount, and stays orange rather than green until I'm back on track)

* save xx overall, but you can spend from it on the way (eg Christmas - I have save £350 I think by Dec 2022, but as long as I've put £350 IN, I can spend out of it and it still stays green)

There are other goals you can have in YNAB, but those are the ones I use. 

When I'm paid
When I'm paid, I go down the list, starting with the monthly DDs, and add the required amount to the pot. I do them in order of importance and flexibility - so important inflexible ones first - so I start with monthly DD, then annual bills (car and other), then down to household expenses (food/diesel) which can be trimmed if necessary, and then other stuff, like true expenses and my spends. 

The deal is you can only allocate what you've actually got in the bank already - no saying 'the pension will be in next week so I'll allocate that to the car insurance" - no, in the budget itself you don't add it til it's in the bank account. I think this has been the single most helpful thing for me, as it means you don't spend stuff twice. Then, if you don't have enough in the car insurance pot when the time comes, you HAVE to pilfer it from another pot - and if that's your holiday fund, then that's what it is. 

The aim is to end up with enough that you can budget for this current month at the start of the month, so when I'm paid (mid month) that can all be allocated to next month's budget. I'm at this stage now (with occasional lapses, usually when I've plonked too much in a savings pot and don't want to take it back out)

When I spend
The easiest thing is when you spend, add it to the app, and it takes money out of that pot and shows you what's left. If there's nothing left, you can spend anyway of course, but then the pot turns red, so you have to pilfer money from a different pot. This is fine, happens all the time, but having to move dosh straight away from one pot to another means I can see that having a cuppa in this cafe means pilfering from a savings pot. 

Reconciling each month
I reconcile the accounts at the end of the month, and try to do it at least once in the middle as well. This involves going through all the bank transactions/receipts and checking they match what you entered in the app. In my case they mostly don't... so I have to sit and enter them all in one go. Slightly tedious, yes, but when it matches up, it means what you've got in your electronic budget is the same as what you've got in the bank, so you can trust it. 

Notional pots
I should point out that I don't have separate bank accounts for my pots. I know lots of people do, and I used to, but since I started using the YNAB software, I don't bother. I don't check the bank account to see how much I've got to spend, I check the budget. Things are allocated to pots, but they're mostly all just in the same bank account. I do have a savings account, and money in premium bonds, and I can track what is in which account in YNAB - but they bear NO resemblance to the budget pots.

I did keep my separate account pots for a while when I started using YNAB, but I found it FAR too confusing to track in separate accounts AND track in YNAB, so I stopped.

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Anyway, I think that's far too much waffling from me already - I suspect you didn't even particularly need any of this as you already have your spreadsheet set up! 

I should also say - I'm a YNAB convert, I love it. BUT the software isn't free, and since they moved to a subscription model, it works out about £6 a month I think, so it's not something I'd ever suggest for anyone in debt. The METHOD though works with even a piece of paper and a pen, and I would recommend that.

Here's a blog post where someone talks about implementing the method but using a spreadsheet - it links to a sample of the spreadsheet which might be useful (ignore the bit about YNAB linking to bank accounts -it doesn't do that in the UK)

How to Apply the YNAB Method Using Google's Free Budgeting Spreadsheet (michaelsaves.com)

I think there's a difference, psychologically, for me, at least, between planning out a budget for the year on the one hand, and sitting down and honestly looking at what money you have in your bank account right now, and deciding what that money needs to do before the next time you get money in. I think both need doing, but the second one doesn't seem to get done as much. More important if you're not paid monthly, or regularly, and risk spending all your notional monthly food budget at the start and then not having enough left for the gas bill going out at the end. 

Right, enough waffling from me!

Cheery_Daff

Still not moved off the sofa since my last lot of waffling 2 hours ago 🙄 Having a Call the Midwife marathon as I often do at this time of year 😂

However, it doesn't matter as much as tonight's visitors have just cancelled as they're full of cold 🙄 Understandable of course, but always a bit disappointing, especially as last night's were meant to stay over and didn't 🙄 At least we did end up meeting up with them, they just didn't come here.

Hey ho. Mr Cheery is still traumatised from our first Christmas here, when we'd got about 12 people arranged to come over a few days before a social event etc, and one by one they all cancelled on the day, until we were down to just three 🙄 Again, each individual person had understandable reasons - tired, overcommitted, busy, or just didn't feel like driving on the day - but from our end it did feel quite relentless 🙄

Anyway, last night was quite spendy. Tea and cake in an extortionate cafe where they got our order wrong (£15), drinks with friends in the pub (£12), Mr Cheery went out for a curry with them (£25), bought more drinks (£9) then had to pay to get into my concert thing (£9). £70 in one evening 😱😱 Good job I didn't end up going for a curry with them as well - I bought a £2 butty from the co op 😂

KajiKita

Cheery, you are an absolute ⭐️ That was just what I needed to know as I haven’t yet got my spreadsheet set up but I can see the benefit of having it set up this way. I will copy / paste your advice and guidance into my MSE actions log ready for completely revamping my tracker over Christmas. Between you and Bluegreen I think I should be able to get my head around this now 😊

KK