Do Personal Budgeting Experts / Freelancers exist in the UK

TheBanker

The advice to look at categories of spending is excellent. When I did this, I found I was wasting quite a lot of money on daily coffees at work. I also found I was wasting money paying to park right outside the office instead of using the free parking a few minutes walk away. 

Switching my coffee for tea saves me about £3 a day, and the parking also saves me £3 a day. May not sound like much but that's £30 a week or £120 a month. Far more than I will gain through moving my savings around or generating bank cashback.

And it doesn't mean going without. Sometimes I still have coffee. And if it's raining I still park outside the office. But now I recognise that these things cost money. (For me the changes also had health benefits as I used to drink full fat lattes and the extra 10 minutes walking can't do any harm).

MalMonroe

Hi, you may be able to pay someone a one off fee to get the advice you need. There's an up to date link here from this very site -

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/best-financial-advisers/

And some really helpful info here from Citizens Advice - 

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/debt-and-money/getting-financial-advice/

While you said - "as is often the case for these kind of fiscal projects, they fall behind the priorities of full time work, kids, kids activities, life etc, etc! I was hoping there may be someone who could beaver away at it for me!" - and I totally understand, time spent on working out your finances and budgets yourselves would be of the greatest benefit.

With the best will in the world, not sorting out your own things - whether it be money or clutter or kitchen cupboards or whatever, just means that you will need financial help again in the future. That means someone has to come in, go over all your income/expenditure etc and then spend time explaining what they have done and why. So, you won't really save any time.

By investing time now to sit down and have a good think, discussion and plan, will mean that you will both understand exactly what you need to do and you won't have to do it again. Hopefully. 

Investing time in something as important as your finances can only be beneficial in the end. I'm not sure exactly how long you think it is going to take but probably not as long as you fear. Most of us lead busy lives too and by neglecting my own finances, I ended up in a DRO. If only I'd have taken my own (restrospective) advice I'd have been a lot better off!  That's why I think it's much better to do it yourself. You learn better and you learn more.

The links RG2015 has provided above are really very helpful. Especially the first one. 

Of course I'm going by my own experiences and what I've said here is obviously just my own thoughts/opinion but if you think of finances like something you had to learn as a child (say fastening your coat buttons or lacing up your own shoes) - if your parents had carried on doing those tasks for you, you'd never have learned how to manage yourself. 

I do believe that time can be found or made for important things if they are important enough. 

All the best.

trailingspouse

Start with your biggest outgoing - probably your mortgage. Can you get it cheaper? When does your current deal run out? etc etc

Then look at your next biggest outgoing. And the next, and the next. Bit by bit you'll chip away at the things that are costing you the most. Look at the cost of your insurances as they come due for renewal.

If all of your bills are paid from a bank account, and you use a card/device for all other outgoings, your bank statement/credit card statement will effectively be your spending diary. I have a spreadsheet (which I put together myself) which shows how much I spend on all the usual categories per month, how much I've spent in the year to date, what money has come in and (the important bit) the difference between the two.

TheBanker

Since posting on this thread, I have received a PM from someone offering to review my budgets in exchange for a fee

If the OP receives a similar unsolicited offer, my advice is to ignore it.

RG2015

TheBanker said:

Since posting on this thread, I have received a PM from someone offering to review my budgets in exchange for a fee

If the OP receives a similar unsolicited offer, my advice is to ignore it.

This must a breach of forum rules.