Shocked at my spending

warby68

Taking it very simplistically - if takeaways, coffees and bingo are your vices, decide how much you would prefer to spend on these and put it in a separate place (account/pot/cash - whichever you prefer) as soon as you are paid and then when its gone its gone. Frequent smallish spends like these can benefit from a weekly allowance so its spread over the month and not binged away in the first few days with a torturous long wait to the next allowance. So that would mean an extra layer - either transferring weekly or drawing cash weekly.

That's a starting point for getting some control over your weak spots, then you can build your budget for everything else over time.

There are many many ways to budget, monitor and control spends but all boil down to the same thing, having a good idea what you need to spend on bills and regular items like food and fuel , then divide up whats left acrss everything discretionary and start tracking.

jennifernil

overspender22 said:

So I’ve been a lurker on here and always trying to find a way to budget as I never seem to have anything left and struggle at the end of each month. 

I plucked up the courage to finally go over my bank apps for January to July this year and I am so shocked. 

I’ve wasted £534 on takeaways, £380 on McDonald’s drinks (frappes/ cokes) and a whopping £1600 on going to bingo. 

I seriously couldn’t believe the numbers and I have spent all weekend trying to find a simple but effective budgeting method and I just can’t work it out. 

I have tried having everything coming out of one bank account (everyday spending, direct debits etc) and it becomes hard to track. 

I’ve tried splitting my money into pots like travel / food but again it’s hard to know what I need in them. 

Any advice on easy ways to budget / organise your bank accounts? I have several bank accounts. 

Basically....stop spending on bingo, McD and takeaways, save the money instead.

I have no idea what your take home pay is, but (we are now pensioners) when my OH had a well paid job, we would not have survived spending on non essentials like you are doing!

Do you have a house/flat and mortgage?   If not, you are never going to own your own place doing like you are!

enthusiasticsaver

overspender22 said:

So I’ve been a lurker on here and always trying to find a way to budget as I never seem to have anything left and struggle at the end of each month. 

I plucked up the courage to finally go over my bank apps for January to July this year and I am so shocked. 

I’ve wasted £534 on takeaways, £380 on McDonald’s drinks (frappes/ cokes) and a whopping £1600 on going to bingo. 

I seriously couldn’t believe the numbers and I have spent all weekend trying to find a simple but effective budgeting method and I just can’t work it out. 

I have tried having everything coming out of one bank account (everyday spending, direct debits etc) and it becomes hard to track. 

I’ve tried splitting my money into pots like travel / food but again it’s hard to know what I need in them. 

Any advice on easy ways to budget / organise your bank accounts? I have several bank accounts. 

First of all well done on working it out and yes as  a novice to budgeting it will be a shock to see how much you are spending every month on non essentials. That is an average of over £400 a month so if you are struggling then this is not surprising. 

I like simple budgeting and have moved totally away from spreadsheets, money software etc etc and just operate with two bank current accounts and a savings pot.  Bulk of our savings are kept in one account but we have starling bank accounts, one joint and one personal each.  All income goes into them and all outgoings but you  can have pots of money within the account that do not show on the money available to spend.  So we have five pots of money within the starling joint account.  One for bills and direct debits  so that money is there waiting to be paid out during the month when the direct debits fall due, one is savings for car expenses like insurance, services, mots and repairs etc.  One is for the house for general repairs, maintenance, white good replacement etc etc and one is for gifts and christmas. The final one is for holidays. Our emergency savings are in our bulk savings and if the pots get too large we move those across for more expensive things like car replacement, new kitchen/bathroom/boiler etc etc. Automatic transfers go into them each month along with automatic transfers to our sole personal accounts for personal spends.  If it is just you then obviously you do not need to do that. The starling app shows how much is left and what we spend and breaks it down into categories like food, fuel, entertainment/lifestyle etc etc. 

A good start to work out how much you need is to work out what you spend now and decide how that fits into your budget.  Do you have debt or savings?  Is there money left at the end of the month or are you always in overdraft? Things like food and fuel are essentials so I do not set up separate pots for them but we know if we overspend then there is less money available to do other non essential stuff. So we keep track of it but do not set a specific budget as it is erratic over the month.  The app always shows how much money we have left though so we know if we fill the cars up or do a big food shop then there will be less to do stuff like takeaways, meals out etc etc. 

Jami74

jennifernil said:

Basically....stop spending on bingo, McD and takeaways, save the money instead.

Do you have a house/flat and mortgage?   If not, you are never going to own your own place doing like you are!

Oh if only getting a mortgage was as simple as giving up bingo McD and takeaways 

lr1277

Rob5342 said:

lr1277 said:

The old fashioned way would be to use cash. Allow yourself a certain amount each week to spend on discretionary stuff. Withdraw that amount in cash and spend over the week. Once the money is gone be disciplined to not spend anymore until you withdraw cash for the next week.
Spending on cards is easy to lose track of how much you have spent.
Spending cash means you see the money leave your hands.
But as has been said, whatever method you choose, discipline is key.

I'd say it was the opposite, cash would be spent with no trace but with a card you can see exactly where it goes. It's also much easier to see how much you have left by looking in the app, and if you have a spare £5 you can transfer it to savngs, with cash it would just get spent.

I find it easiest to have the money split in the bank, that way it takes care of itself. I used to have seperate accounts for bills and spendimg, now I have a Monzo account for everything with pots for bills, and week 2, week 3 and week 4. I know all the money for bills is set aside, so all I need to do is check the balance in the app to see how much is left for that week. I also find it useful to treat savings as a bill and put the money into the savings as soon as I get paid.

Hmm. Your method seems to work for you.It may also work for the OP.

However the OP has not mentioned regularly looking at their apps since they had their lightbulb moment. From what they have said, they looked as a one off.

The advantage of cash is that you can see it leave your wallet and your hands.

Anyway the method I use is personal finance tracking software. This requires a different kind of diligence of entering all your daily transactions. So I spend 5-10 minutes a day entering my transactions and reconciling them against the cash in my wallet or the transactions shown on my financial providers' website. The software I use also allows you to enter a budget for th year and I think it shows how much you have left in your budget for that category you have left to spend in the year.

However the software I use is old and no longer supported. However I am sure there are more recent personal finance tracking packages available now that should have better features. YNAB (You need a budget) springs to mind but this is not a recommendation as I have never used it. However the reviews suggest it is a budget led tracking package.

In terms of keeping track of cash, I keep receipts for every cash transaction. This does fill up my wallet quickly which is why everyday I enter the transactions into the software and reconcile the figures, so at least I can empty my wallet on a daily basis. Also the daily reconciliation gives me comfort that there is the money in my accounts or wallet that the sotware says is there. Or not, in which case I have to investigate and make adjustments.

Again, whatever method is chosen, discipline is key.

MovingForwards

When I started life over, I set up a spreadsheet detailing all my fixed outgoings - apportioned rent and bills, phone, travel, set a budget for food, car repairs, MOT etc and petrol, allowed a budget for treats - a random coffee, having my eyebrows done etc. Nearly all the spare money was treated as savings.

Savings were sent to a dedicated account with a different bank on payday and has been treated as another bill ever since I started over.

My food and treat budget was taken out as cash each Friday, plus bus pass money when that was due to be renewed. If I spent it all that weekend it was tough poo, I couldn't take any more out until the next Friday. 

As it was, parting with cash made it easier to see where I was spending money and how much, I didn't like parting with it. The following Friday I took less out, got home, opened another savings account and moved the difference of what I didn't have to take out to savings.

susuej17

I have been using a really helpful app called spending tracker which is not linked to your bank account. You can set up category filters etc to suit you and it enables you to see what you're spending. I just do a daily input of expenditure.  Using this has really highlighted where the "fritter money" has gone and motivated me to assess all expenditure.

B0bbyEwing

No responses on this thread for a while so sorry for the bump but I've just been linked to it. Unless I've missed it as I've gone through the thread then I noticed a couple things:

1) the use cash because you see it leaving your hand / no don't use cash use a card instead because then there's a trace

^^ Could debate that one all day long & still be no further forward or backward. Totally depends on the individual. Cash will work for some where card may be useless & vice versa.


2) and the reason I'm actually replying to this post - people have said stop spending / stop spending so much on bingo / takeaways / McDonalds etc.

As though the OP should turn round & say oh well why didn't I think of that. Like it's the easiest most simple thing in the world to do.

But just to throw this out there - what if the OP is addicted to any or all of what they mentioned? Not saying they are as I don't know them, that's why I said what if & put a question mark on it.

If it was an alcoholic, you wouldn't say "just stop" & expect them to - but then alcoholism is an accepted addiction. Just because some things aren't your traditional addictions doesn't make them any less an addiction.

OR the OP may not be addicted to any of it at all. I was only throwing it out there as a possibility.

huw01

takeaways, Maccies and bingo aren't essentials and can be cut out either completly or their frequency reduced
Another one here for the cash option
Set yourself a weekly or monthly budget to encompass all 3 if you are not prepared to give them up
if you get paid monthly then straight after payday withdraw say £200 to see you through the month for all 3
When its gone its gone, no more withdrawals 
I have a mate who has done this since he started working at 16 and still does it approaching 50

B0bbyEwing

huw01 said:

When its gone its gone, no more withdrawals 

Not directed at you as others have said it, but just to this kind of suggestion - 

All well & good if that's the problem. Loosely translated, if someone didn't realise that if they just stopped spending on these things then they'd save money, then it'd work.

But I'd argue that anyone who can function in society would surely have the capacity to know that already.

IF it's an addiction however then it's a different matter. Tell an alcoholic they only have £10 to spend on drink this month. They'll just go to their bank account & get more money once that £10 is spent because the willpower isn't there & they have a problem. Once that account has gone then they may even take off other people, who knows.

Again, I'm not saying the OP has an addiction, I'm just trying to open peoples eyes to the possibility that it might not be as simple as they're making out.