Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

PennysIntoPounds

Quite right putting the bag cost to the healthcare pot funds
I am honoured indeed you thought of me when contemplating your free wee 😂 Dang right that's a win, financially and societally!
Lovely you're looking forward to your nail polish. I cut my fingernails really short to prevent breakage and grime with all the moving, and they still look like the band Cradle of Filth named themselves after my poor dilapidated nails
Is this the Guardi saturday cryptic you mentioned before? Hope you're enjoying (as much as anyone can enjoy being befuddled 😁). I must make a start on yesterday's weekend one from the free paper!

weenancyinAmerica

Anyone over 5 feet is tall. At least by comparison.

WannabeSaver4

Hi there Foxgloves and crew, I am I like to think a reasonably intelligent person and you guys have obviously got this down to a tee. How do you guys actually work your budget /spreadsheets day to day? I am trying to get a tighter control of figures and we will need to tighten our belts in the near future. We are generally fairly fungal and spend within our means, but in reality we have normally had just a bit more than our modest spending habitats so we have been able to save something for emergencies without being totally on it or having spreadsheets. There is talk of pots, and big budget day. What do you actually do? And how do you make sure this influences actual spending behaviour? We have tried budgeting in the past which has really just been about recording spending not changing what we spend so to speak. 

foxgloves

@WannabeSaver4, Hi & welcome. I'm just acknowledging your question. I am knackered from a busy day in the veg garden so I'm going to answer it tomorrow when I'm at my laptop. Happy to share the basics of how I work a budget.
F

Blackcats

It's very sensible of you to try on clothes before a potential purchase - in the past I also bought "bargains" in any style and any colour in more or less the right size.  Quite a few of these bargains never even got worn.
I just made a similar faux pas with a purchase from vin ted - right brand, right colour - terrible fit.  I'll now have to re-list it and hope to recoup some of the cost.

PennysIntoPounds

@Blackcats! Did you not keep the receipt?

Hi @Wannabesaver4, you've definitely asked the right person in our foxgloves!

foxgloves

Awww, @PennysIntoPounds - I wouldn't at all profess to be an expert budgeter, & I certainly don't put nearly as much effort in as some on here in chasing best interest rates for savings, but the system I've honed since first setting out to become debt-free does work for us & so as far as I'm concerned, fulfils its brief.

@Blackcats - Back in the Spendy Era, I didn't have a wardrobe, I had 2 of those long metal clothes rails along one side of the bedroom wall & they were completely rammed with stuff. The outfits I actually wore regularly would have fitted on half of one of them, as I was an absolute sucker for buying sale rail stuff that was 'ok', largely based on the amazing bargain I was getting. Some bargain, eh, when much of it was hardly worn? Remember that wretched dress from my previous diary, from which I kept hacking bits, in the hope of turning it into something wearable? I am much stronger these days, thank goodness, as used to waste so much money back then on stuff which didn't fit properly or was only 'ok'. Now, if I don't love it or know that it will provide sterling regular service as a part of my wardrobe, then it stays in the shop. Never thought I'd be a person who could do this, but I am & I very much can!
F x

foxgloves

@WannabeSaver4 - I'm going to try & answer your question about budgeting. I know that everyone's system will be a bit different - I had to have about 3 or 4 goes to get it right, but now that I have a method which works for us & our household finances, I have to say that I have found it empowering. 
First, you say that you have tried budgeting in the past, but it was just recording your spending. That can be a useful exercise, particularly if you want to drill down into where your money is going over a certain time period, but it isn't a budget, it's a list. Or if you do it over a longer period, it's a spending diary. I would define a household budget as a deliberate allocation of your monthly income so that it covers first your essential outgoings - housing costs, energy, food, insurances, travel, council tax, clothing, all of that kind of thing. Then come decisions about discretionary outgoings - holidays, entertainment, non-essential subscriptions, & importantly, how much you are going to put into savings. These headings & allocations will be different for all of us.
I have my monthly Big Budget Day on pay-day (27th). First I reconcile the previous month's budget. I print off an up-to-date bank statement & check that all our regular bills/DDs went out as expected, then check-off receipts & all other transactions. Is this OTT? Maybe some will think so, but I remember the horrendous time (long before I began taking a responsible attitude to money) when the bank paid my mortgage out twice for THREE MONTHS while I was going spare about being even more horrible overdrawn than usual! A friend of mine also had a single cashpoint withdrawal of £40 recorded twice by her bank - something that simply wasn't possible as she was in a different town with me at the time of the 2nd one! I have more recently had 2 fraudulent pending transactions on one of my accounts, so I always check everything off. This having been done, I can begin setting the new month's budget knowing the exact balance of our current account. 
I don't use any budgeting software packages/programmes, although I know others find them helpful, I just 'think' better with pen & paper, so although I have 3 Excel spreadsheets as part of my budgeting arsenal, I write up my monthly budgets in an A4 notebook in pencil. I absolutely LOVE pencils & stationery, so that is also (tragically) motivating! Spreadsheet 1 is simply where I input amounts for bills/household DDs, so I can just take off the overall monthly amount for those. I write up my budget for the new month ahead in my Money Book, using a line for every deduction & keeping a cumulative total of balance left. I then take off the grocery budget, our Personal Spends, credit card payments (these are paid in full every month & are used for planned spending such as petrol, groceries, presents, etc) & payments to 3 savings accounts. Then from the amount left, I work out what I want to pay across to our Savings Pots account. This is allocated to specific pots, the idea being that these are regular expenses which are going to come up, so we need to put money aside for them. I started out with just 6 pots, which were cash envelopes, but as I found the system worked, I improved & enlarged it to 10 virtual pots, which also means we can earn a bit of interest on them too. Our 10 Savings Pots are:
Car maintenance
House & garden
Clothes
Holidays
Meow Fund
Dentist/Optician/Medical
Appliances replacement 
Tech replacement 
Leisure/Entertainment
Presents
The figures for these are recorded & managed via Spreadsheet 2.
Spreadsheet 3 is for recording our Personal Spends. We budget £100 per month each. There are only 2 rules for Personal Spends - we can spend it on whatever we like, but when it's gone, it's gone until next month. This works really well for us. Unspent money is rolled forwards & we also have the option of augmenting it by doing paid surveys or other side hustles.
Halfway through the month, I do a mid-month budget check-in. It's just to check if what I think we should have left according to my figures tallies with what we actually have in our bank account, as if I have made a a glaring error or something has gone awry, then I'd rather discover it sooner rather than later. I always budget to leave between £200 & £250 buffer zone in our current account though, just in case of minor emergencies. For major emergencies, we have an emergency fund containing 6 months of our income. 
I hope this is helpful & was the sort of info you wanted?
Re your question about how budgeting properly influences spending behaviour? I think this may to an extent depend on individual circumstances. Both Mr F & I began outspending our means at the age of 19 & carried on until we were in our early 40s. Neither of us ever attempted to live within our income. We earned pretty decent (though not huge by any means) professional public sector salaries & found that there really seemed to be no limit to what we could borrow. I thought budgeting was for utterly boring people & 'squares'. I thought it would curtail my shopping activities & stop me doing the things I like, but having had the anti-debt lightbulb ping on in my head, I soon started to realise that budgeting is actually empowering. Rather than curtail, it facilitates being able to do things because our budget ensures that we are not chucking our income away on stupid things & poor decisions. So I find I can stick to the monthly budget with ease & in good grace because if I don't, then I know I will have to find the money from elsewhere. I will have to raid the savings pots, general savings or heaven forfend our emergency fund. Or I would have to use our buffer zone then start the following month with a deficit meaning £250 less to pay into the pots. Sometimes I make a mental note of some lovely thing I've seen as a present idea, as Mr F & my sister always ask me if there's anything I'd like for Christmas or birthday. My careful budgeting & the fact that we both now feel more financially secure than we have ever been mean that I am not going to blow all my figures out of the water on instant gratification stuff.
I'm not perfect, I love a little treat as much as the next person, but I have my monthly Personal Spends for that.
Hope all of this makes sense.
F

foxgloves

I've just about got writer's cramp now! Funny how that dress & of course, the triffid top keep being referenced as examples of poor clothes-buying decisions.
Anyway, onto today's small money saving positives. I was out in the garden at just after 8.00 this morning netting duckweed out of the pond, so that got me off to a good start:
*Did 3 loads of laundry & got all of them dry outside on the whirlygig for free.
*Did 'chop & drop' on the huge pile of comfrey I cut yesterday. It has now been strewn over the beds where I shall soon be planting out beans, courgettes & squash. The remainder went on the compost as it's a good free activator.
*Checked all the greenhouse veg for pests/problems. Got to look after future food!
*Ate an eclectic array of leftovers for my lunch.
*Made tomorrow's packed lunch & breakfast.
*Finished my library wish list for next time I visit.
*Trying a new slow cooker recipe today - sausage hot-pot from the 'I heart my SC' book, which I think I will just serve with crusty home made bread & butter as I baked a loaf yesterday. There will be enough to feed us tomorrow too.
*Will defo finish the 1st of my friend's Christmas present socks tonight, as only need to knit the toe section before casting on its pair.
*Have been checking for surveys, but nothing doing today.
According to Mr F (resident weather forecast follower), it is going to be pretty showery tomorrow, so I am lining up various indoor jobs that need doing rather than spend the day moaning about not being able to get out into the garden. 
Hope everyone's got off to a decent start to the new week. If not, just try to have a calm evening & start the week again tomorrow. 
F x

joedenise

Love the sound of the SC sausages hotpot.  Hope you'll let us all know if it's any good and if it is perhaps you could share the recipe with us?