Help budgeting & spreadsheet templates

B0bbyEwing

Apologies if in wrong forum but the title says budgeting & bank accounts but I don't see much budgeting talk. If this should be elsewhere then could someone please move it?

Basically I'm looking to start budgeting. We're not in debt, we have no kids but our approach to saving for years has been kind of wing it, within reason (as in we don't just spend like there's no tomorrow). We don't earn bad but we don't earn great. We've earned enough to allow us to be relatively comfortable. Some months we'll hit minus (e.g. we pay gym memberships up front as it's cheaper so in this month it's always a minus) but over the course of a 12 month period we basically make more than we spent.

With the price of energy / fuel / food getting silly and with wanting to retire ASAP (some 20+ years off yet though) I've been wanting to pay more attention to our spending so that (to a degree at least) every penny is allocated somewhere - be it fixed expenses like mortgage, variables like food shop or even savings like regular cash savings or pensions. I don't want to just really freestyle it.

So with something like Google Sheets monthly budget planner in mind (although not totally happy with it yet unable to find one I am happy with) and LemonFool statement of affairs list to go off, I started making a bit of an expenses list.

I then had the conversation with my wife about it all. She tried her best to stay with me but I know this stuff bores her to death & me talking to her about setting up spreadsheets was visibly sending her to sleep.
Or maybe it was my voice.

She's with the idea as she's worried about the increase in bills & she also wants to retire ASAP. She did ask though:

Categorising things like mortgage, council tax etc is all well & good but what about planning for the unexpected? Someone asks if she wants to go for a drink after work. We can afford it so she wouldn't want to say no just because it's not entered on a sheet. While I guess you could put that down as socialising & put a number to it, what about when you're just out & about and see something, anything, and think that's a great buy, I need/want that - I'm talking about on-the-fly kind of purchases. How do you factor all that in?

If anyone is willing to share their template then that could be helpful.

Just looking for a bit of advice as not too sure where to start. What do you do when something throws a spanner in the works? Surely there has to be a degree of flexibility. I wouldn't want to make a bad choice just because computer-says-no or rather computer hasn't been programmed to say yes yet.

And before anyone suggests YNAB, Google Sheets is free.
And Excel has already been paid for.

blue.peter

There's an MSE budget spreadsheet that can be downloaded from this page.

I cope with the unexpected by using savings. Obviously, I don't like it, but that's one of the things that savings are for - what my mother calls a rainy day fund.

At the end of each month, I look at the following month's expenditure (including paying off my credit cards in full), treat that money as spent, hold a little back for ad hoc cash spending (such as your drink after work), and sweep anything that looks as if it'll be surplus into savings. With experience, you know how much to hold back for ad hoc spending and can include it as a budget item.

EDIT: You might find it helpful to use a money management program. I use, and recommend, AceMoney. Other programs are available. For example, if you want a free one, you might look at MoneyManager EX. Not only do these programs give you a record of historic spending, but they'll also allow you look forward and plan future spending. AceMoney also produces reports, either as tables or as pie charts. I posted an example of one here.

Dobbibill

The link blue.peter has shared tells you about planning for one off purchases. 

It depends on your approach but if you are going down the piggy-banking route then you would have spending money for spontaneous spends like coffees, or an emergency fund for emergencies, house fund for purchases to the house so really does depend on how you approach this. 

Do not mistake a budget for being tight and not having what you want......it's about giving every penny a job so you can plan for  what you want. 

inspectorperez

If you are a Windows user, there is a very useful app called Moneypoint which is free and can be downloaded from the Windows Store.

 I find it very flexible and it is quite easy to set up your own budget headings etc. There is also a capability to export data into excel spreadsheets if you want to improve presentation or tweak the way in which the information is reported.

Certainly worth downloading and spending 10 minutes navigating round the various features to see if it’s the sort of thing you are looking for.

RG2015

B0bbyEwing said:

Apologies if in wrong forum but the title says budgeting & bank accounts but I don't see much budgeting talk. If this should be elsewhere then could someone please move it?

This is the correct forum although there is a distinct imbalance between posts on banking and those on budgeting. It is even more confusing to combine two quite different topics despite an overlap in financial records, held in bank accounts, being a core element of budgeting.

I believe that accurate financial records are central to budgeting success. Your choice of method is personal and Excel is fine if you are confident with using it. I generate my own spreadsheets and find that using someone else's spreadsheet or template just doesn't work for me.

I have a complete history of my income and expenditure for several years and this informs my budgeting for the future.

Once you have compiled a list of your own regular monthly, quarterly and annual income and expenditure you have effectively created your own template.

You may be able to download your transactions for the past year from your online banking into Excel. I bank with NatWest and they have this facility as do many other banks. You may find this a useful place to start.

RG2015

I forgot to address your issue of unplanned or spontaneous expenditure. I see what I have spent here in the past and budget a figure with which I am comfortable. I can then monitor this to see if it works.

B0bbyEwing

blue.peter said:

There's an MSE budget spreadsheet that can be downloaded from this page.

Ah. I looked at that spreadsheet. To be honest I think the Google Sheets one was more appealing.
Despite seeing many templates I just haven't quite seen one that does it. To which some would say create your own, and I would, but I see on these YouTube videos these guys pulling hieroglyphics crazy formula out like it's nothing. I know how to do things like =A1+B1 and click the add that whole column button but some of this stuff they're doing is mind blowing. 

blue.peter said:

I cope with the unexpected by using savings. Obviously, I don't like it, but that's one of the things that savings are for - what my mother calls a rainy day fund.

We also discussed having a total re-jig of our bank/savings accounts so that everything was easier to follow. Right now I keep a spreadsheet tallying our accounts to get a grand total but oh boy do we have so many accounts. That's not to say we have so much money, just a lot of accounts. 

So basically right now we just have cash spread across accounts, partly dictated by account perks & interest rates.

My re-think was:

•  the wages account to handle the direct debits plus some kind of float balance. 
•  A savings account that would hold £10k. This would be to cover life's eventualities. Fridge breaks, washing machine breaks, freezer breaks & the car blows up ... all in the same week at the same time you'd booked in a re-roof. My thinking was it needs to be a figure that isn't that low that you may run in to a problem but it isn't that high that you're having money sat around earning nothing.
• Emergency pot of 6 months wages (not bills - wages is higher & gives more cushion) trickling towards 12 months. This only ever being used in the event of either a) actually out of work as in sacked/redundant or b) actual long term sick, not just a few weeks.
• Whatever is left, rather than putting it in the £10k (cash savings) account earning nothing - put it in a S&S ISA.
• Then SIPPs & LISAs for retirement

So you would just handle these random pop up occurences (the offer of a drink or buying something unexpected while out) from just your general banking account if using my example above?

I just wondered how people who actually budget rather than just winging it like I've been doing, account for these things - because when winging it, everything fits one way or another, but when budgeting, you can't plan for everything, just most things.

And I also can't ask anyone offline because this is all boring stuff to them. They can't even be bothered (their words) to spend 10 minutes applying for an account to get a free £100, never mind this stuff. So I've only really here to ask.blue.peter said:

 With experience, you know how much to hold back for ad hoc spending and can include it as a budget item.

EDIT: You might find it helpful to use a money management program. I use, and recommend, AceMoney. Other programs are available. For example, if you want a free one, you might look at MoneyManager EX. Not only do these programs give you a record of historic spending, but they'll also allow you look forward and plan future spending. AceMoney also produces reports, either as tables or as pie charts. I posted an example of one here.

This is what i said regards the opening bit there - initially there will be a bit of chopping & changing as we get used to this lifestyle. In time it should become easier.

Despite it not being free, a plus for AceMoney is the one off payment. Anything subscription based will go in the bin instantly. 

However regards whatever we use, it would be really beneficial if we could both access it on the go. Can AceMoney do that?

With a spreadsheet, either of us could log in to the shared Google Drive folder & make a change there & then. 

B0bbyEwing

Dobbibill said:

The link blue.peter has shared tells you about planning for one off purchases. 

It depends on your approach but if you are going down the piggy-banking route then you would have spending money for spontaneous spends like coffees, or an emergency fund for emergencies, house fund for purchases to the house so really does depend on how you approach this. 

Do not mistake a budget for being tight and not having what you want......it's about giving every penny a job so you can plan for  what you want. 

Yeah that's what I'm trying to figure out.

I know what I'm wondering & lost with in my head but I re-read my OP & I certainly struggled putting it in to words for others to understand.

I know what I want to do - it started out as tallying what pennies go where to see what we may be spending too much on, but then the realisation set in with what's the point in that - we may as well set limits for things & go from there. 

I think my wife at first was worried that it'll mean no enjoyment, but that's the default reaction for anyone who's not "in to" this - to take it to the extreme. It doesn't mean we can't go to a coffee shop, it just means we can't go 2-3 times per week every week. It doesn't mean we can't have a takeaway, it just means we can't have 5 takeaways in a month. 

The only area I think what I want to do is different to others is I'd like to break supermarket spends down to split off junk food spending as that's an area I want us to not spend so much on. 


But I came here to see what others did as when my wife asked - what do I do if the girls ask me out, I said we cna put that under socialising. 
She then said well what do I do if I see something when I'm out - garden stuff, clothes stuff, house stuff, that we wouldn't normally buy. She didn't want to restrict herself just because computer-says-no (there's no category for that) - and I didn't really have an answer. 

My answer wasn't no. It was just that I wanted to see what others did. Not others who wing-it, because we've been winging it since day 1 so we know how to do that, but others who budget & allocate pennies to things.

B0bbyEwing

inspectorperez said:

If you are a Windows user, there is a very useful app called Moneypoint which is free and can be downloaded from the Windows Store.

 I find it very flexible and it is quite easy to set up your own budget headings etc. There is also a capability to export data into excel spreadsheets if you want to improve presentation or tweak the way in which the information is reported.

Certainly worth downloading and spending 10 minutes navigating round the various features to see if it’s the sort of thing you are looking for.

I'll take a look, thanks.

cheerfulcat

B0bbyEwing said:

The only area I think what I want to do is different to others is I'd like to break supermarket spends down to split off junk food spending as that's an area I want us to not spend so much on. 


But I came here to see what others did as when my wife asked - what do I do if the girls ask me out, I said we cna put that under socialising. 
She then said well what do I do if I see something when I'm out - garden stuff, clothes stuff, house stuff, that we wouldn't normally buy. She didn't want to restrict herself just because computer-says-no (there's no category for that) - and I didn't really have an answer. 

My answer wasn't no. It was just that I wanted to see what others did. Not others who wing-it, because we've been winging it since day 1 so we know how to do that, but others who budget & allocate pennies to things.

Make a category! It’s not that you don’t normally buy these things, you just don’t buy them regularly. 

I work out how much I want to spend per year on, for example, little things for the house. I divide that number by 12 and that gives me a monthly amount; anything not spent gets rolled over and added to next month’s budgeted amount. 

For things like drinks with friends, a monthly spending money allowance each might work for you?

RG2015

B0bbyEwing said:

blue.peter said:

There's an MSE budget spreadsheet that can be downloaded from this page.

Ah. I looked at that spreadsheet. To be honest I think the Google Sheets one was more appealing.
Despite seeing many templates I just haven't quite seen one that does it. To which some would say create your own, and I would, but I see on these YouTube videos these guys pulling hieroglyphics crazy formula out like it's nothing. I know how to do things like =A1+B1 and click the add that whole column button but some of this stuff they're doing is mind blowing. 

blue.peter said:

I cope with the unexpected by using savings. Obviously, I don't like it, but that's one of the things that savings are for - what my mother calls a rainy day fund.

We also discussed having a total re-jig of our bank/savings accounts so that everything was easier to follow. Right now I keep a spreadsheet tallying our accounts to get a grand total but oh boy do we have so many accounts. That's not to say we have so much money, just a lot of accounts. 

So basically right now we just have cash spread across accounts, partly dictated by account perks & interest rates.

1. Excel can do fancy stuff but all you really need is add and subtract.

2. I have multiple accounts and have a spreadsheet with columns for each account and with rows for transactions.