How Do You Manage Your Money?

chirpychick

I hope this is the right place to post, I usually hang out on OS. 
I'm just wondering how you manage your finances. 
My hubby works FT - I stay home - I am disabled and applied for pip on 1st June which is currently going to MR (and tribunal if necessary). I also care for my son full time who is disabled. So We have my husbands income + DLA for son which goes on his needs + carers and CB. We moved house a year ago and EVERYTHING that could have gone wrong did! So we have wracked up some debt. We aren't broke but we're struggling. I have been here for long enough now to know which things constitute essentials and don't and feel that we have cut back wherever possible and currently working on reducing our food spend. 
But my question is more about how do you manage your income. Do you throw it all in one pot and hope for the best? Work on a pot system? Do you budget for every eventuality i.e Christmas/Birthdays, save money for clothing etc or just wing it? 
We have worked with a virtual envelope system for some years but to be honest, we're always robbing peter to pay paul. Thankfully we have no credit card debt, just the loans for home repairs so our income is pretty much guaranteed to not fluctuate too much but we just never seem to be able to stick to the budget. 
Im wondering what people recommend doing and what has worked best for you. 
We have also tried working in cash but particularly since covid we find a lot of places we go don't accept it and then we end up constantly having to pay money into the bank which neither of us is able to do often.
Just looking for some ideas and hints on how to budget and maybe some suggestions on how to stick to that budget!

MovingForwards

I have a spreadsheet.
Each Christmas holiday I prepare the spreadsheet for the following year and add my fixed monthly outgoings mortgage, utilities, food, petrol, savings etc and allocate figures for things like PayPal spends, eyebrow threading, pocket money etc.

I have another spreadsheet for my savings.
The savings are annual bills eg car / home insurance, car repair bills, property emergency fund, mortgage emergency fund etc. 

I find it easier to have different accounts for different things. My main current account is where my wages go in and direct debits come out, it's also used for food, PayPal etc.

A second current account holds my car / insurance money. That way I've a debit card to pay garages, insurers etc.

My third current account is my property emergency fund, eg gas / water leak, electric popping, or even having to replace my washing machine if it goes caput. Most places would take a debit card.

I treat my savings as another bill and pay it out when I get paid. If my weekly food bill is less than my budget, I transfer the surplus to savings.

Birthdays I deal with the month before they take place, Christmas is deal with from September onwards. It just means I put a bit less into savings those months.

Stick with a shopping list, if it's not on the list it doesn't go in the trolley.

Do a food audit, that way you know what you've got in the cupboards, try to add an extra item when you go shopping to build up stores. 

Batch cooking and meal planning is beneficial, means minimal waste and you've got 'ready made' meals in the freezer. 

Username03725

I wrote my own money manager, initially a desktop app and for the last 20 years it's been a web app with occasional updates & improvements, accessible from anywhere. Like weight loss, keeping on top of money is much easier if you know where you are with it at any time, so [in mine] it tracks regular payments [DDs & SOs] and clears them on their due dates, and builds in an expected weekly cash withdrawal (£0 - £500) and factors that in to a month-end available balance, where month-end is whenever that specific account cycles e.g. if payday is the 18th the core account cycle end-day is the 18th. It's how I'd view my available funds in real life so this matches it.

It lets me create accounts and transactions within each account that can be linked to other accounts so e.g. a cash withdrawal from my main account creates a cash credit in the Cash account. Accounts can be switched off when no longer needed, but mainly it pulls in downloaded files from my online banking sources and matches the actuality against what I've logged and flags up discrepancies. On a couple of occasions that's flagged up credit card fraud.

I wouldn't recommend this unless you have the time and the wherewithall to write one yourself, but keeping on top of all of your incoming and outgoing funds is the best way to stay afloat. Excel spreadsheets can do a similar job for a lot less effort, but aren't easily available wherever you happen to be.

As for allocating it, we readily accept that we've been very lucky in life to earn more than we spend, so it's mainly been a case of efficient allocation of it and accessing it as & when in the best way. We do maintain separate current and savings accounts though. That just suits us.

maman

From many threads over the years, it seems that couples have varied ways of managing their finances. My DH and I have similar incomes and we choose to keep our finances fairly separate. We spilt all household expenditure 50/50 and then the rest is ours to spend or save as we choose. Fortunately we're both sensible and save enough so that we can contribute to any large expenditure that comes along whether planned or otherwise (like holidays, remember them?😉 🤣).  We have separate bank accounts, share the direct debits for utilities between us, pay everything else on a card and then simply add up and divide by two when the bill comes in each month. In your case, you'd have to add your loan repayment to the other household bills. 

Regardless of the system though, what really matters is whether you've discussed it with your DH and how you both think it could work. Personally I'd hate a one pot system as I was financially independent before meeting DH and I like it that way. When couples argue about money it seems to be because they each have a different approach and haven't discussed a shared way. 

Your situation is different though as it's not from choice that you don't work. You don't say how old your son is but if he's an adult or close then maybe his finances could be kept fairly separate with him making a contribution to household bills if that's appropriate. He may live independently one day and then his benefits would go with him.  After that then maybe a one pot system with all your own benefits and your DH's salary thrown in is the best (only?) way. I'd want you both to have some separate spending money if you can afford it otherwise, if one person is taking money from a shared pot for personal spends and the other isn't, it can lead to friction.