Yearly Personal Budget

Potbellypig

Does anyone use a yearly budget rather than a weekly/monthly one and find it works? I've put one together for me in an Excel sheet and might start January using it, but thought I'd get some opinions on here. Are there any other templates for yearly budgets out there that people use too?

Jami74

How would it work? Do you mean like budgeting £xxxx for food across the year? If that was the case for me it would have the potential of going way off track and I could get to month ten and have no money left to eat. Or do you mean more for your known annual bills? I know how much I need to put aside across the year for certain things, previously I divided it by 12 and put aside equal monthly amounts but this last year, for example, I got a bonus so 'paid up' my car expenses account in advance (currently sitting in Barclays Rainy Day Saver) so I don't need to add any more to it until April.

SaverRate

I have an excel document for the year. One sheet has per month expenses (direct debits, spending money, food etc) I then have a separate sheet to save for bills that happen once or twice a year that links to the first sheet so it takes out the total each month (divided by 12) that I would need e.g. car insurance, home insurance etc. 

I made my own templates to be honest and have and keep adapting them to how I need them. 

It allows me to see how my monthly spend per month varies and also what bills I have coming up each month. 

MovingForwards

I have an annual spreadsheet, broken down by months. It lists all known outgoings, with spaces for as hoc spends eg via PayPal, birthdays and other bits.

Annual bills are based on the previous year until I know what the new amounts are.

It also details my income.

I've got another tab for savings, balances on all accounts with another section for projected monthly savings and which account gets how much.

It's worked for over 6 years and I've no plans to change. Simple, but effective.

MikeJXE

MovingForwards said:

I have an annual spreadsheet, broken down by months. It lists all known outgoings, with spaces for as hoc spends eg via PayPal, birthdays and other bits.

Annual bills are based on the previous year until I know what the new amounts are.

It also details my income.

I've got another tab for savings, balances on all accounts with another section for projected monthly savings and which account gets how much.

It's worked for over 6 years and I've no plans to change. Simple, but effective.

I am in the process of building one in Apple Numbers for 2023 similar to this split into months, Yes simple

Jami74

Oh I see! Yes I have a spreadsheet for the joint account that I prepopulate in advance. I plonk the figures in for the whole year so I can see what is needed to go in each month to cover everything and then I let my partner know what his contributions need to be. Usually when prices go up there's a couple of months notice and there's a slight buffer (our contributions are rounded up to a sensible number) so there is time to make adjustments and no shocks. It's very basic, each month has a column for date, in, out and balance.

subjecttocontract

We find it easier to have a single excel spreadsheet for all our annual payments involving our UK property/ insurances/ transport & subscriptions and another for our property in Spain, I didn't consider there was something already available. We don't operate a budget, it's just so we can have a handle on how much stuff is costing us. The total annual expenses went down for us during the pandemic because we chose not to renew many of our annual costs as we didnt travel anywhere but we are back to normal almost now. It's just a big yearly chart split into months with the item, date and cost inserted.

We have a separate sheet for regular monthly expenses.
Then we have separate sheets for finance stuff.

DiamondLil

MovingForwards said:

I have an annual spreadsheet, broken down by months. It lists all known outgoings, with spaces for as hoc spends eg via PayPal, birthdays and other bits.

Annual bills are based on the previous year until I know what the new amounts are.

It also details my income.

I've got another tab for savings, balances on all accounts with another section for projected monthly savings and which account gets how much.

It's worked for over 6 years and I've no plans to change. Simple, but effective.

This is exactly what we in Diamond Towers do.

RobM99

I just do a month maximum to keep a track of costs. Must say my petrol usage has drooped dramatically - even with gigs all over Essex I'm still only doing 7000 a year. Where did I go previously?!

MattMattMattUK

My budget breaks down monthly, but covers a whole year, some costs are one off in the year (eg. car and home insurance), some are fixed monthly (energy Direct Debit, water Direct Debit), others are budgeted but vary (food, petrol etc.). So I aim to stay within monthly limits, but also the annual budget offered some flexibility, in January and February expenditure on many things is down, more people stay in, fewer gigs, I go to less sport as it is cold etc. So I often arrive at the end of Q1 well under budget, that means that even with an overspend in subsequent months I would likely be below budget over the year. I tend to use those funds to overpay my mortgage and put some into savings.

To make a budget work properly it needs to cover a full year but be more granular than a year, annual and monthly means one has a balanced approach. 

BigSpender2_2

I have planned this before but not very good and tracking it. 2023 will be different