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How do you stay motivated with budgeting?

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  • jbrassy
    jbrassy Posts: 1,019 Forumite
    Seventh Anniversary 500 Posts Name Dropper
    A few easy tips from me:
    1 - keep track of all your income and outgoings in a spreadsheet.
    2 - set a savings goal for each month, e.g. £100, £200, £500.
    3 - set up a standing order so your savings are transferred into your savings account the day after you're paid.
    4 - set up spending alerts on your credit cards to keep track of your spending. 
  • Rich1976
    Rich1976 Posts: 695 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    edited 18 February 2024 at 1:51PM
    Until I set up a spreadsheet a few years back it was too easy to lose track of where everything was going.
    since then it has been a game changer. We also streamlined our accounts so now both incomes and all expenses come out of one account. All day to day spending goes on a credit card and is paid off the following month.
    so on the spreadsheet , at the top is the income section in which both salaries are recorded.
    then there are 3 expenditure sections split into Monthly essentials which includes mortgage, council tax, utility bills, mobiles, food and petrol
    then Savings and pensions 
    then fun and entertainment which covers spending money for us both, Spotify, Netflix etc.

    it helps that most of the costs are fixed every month. The savings tend to vary as depends if any annual expenses are due that month like the car insurance. The pensions are a fixed £100 each every month.

    the spending money we have a bit more flexibility over and don’t tend to stress if it goes over the pre determined amount. My argument is that as long as we are saving enough and all the bills are being paid , an overspend of £50 due to too many coffees out or a more expensive meal than we should have had isn’t going to do too much damage.

    there is then a totals section so both incomes less all the expenses equal zero.

    Then the same process is repeated every month.

    i suppose the main point of keeping motivated is to have goals. So you need to know what you are saving for, eg for us we are gradually doing home improvements and that all needs saving for. We are also saving for a replacement car.

    equally we set a healthy amount of spending money, so no good setting a £50 limit if you know that’s too restrictive. So we have about £400 which tends to cover everything we like doing as well as any birthday presents in the month we need to buy something.
  • I think a spreadsheet is a goer. The problem is I have a few different accounts and systems and limited excel skills. Oh well it’s a good opportunity to practice.

    Maybe I can use a pivot table. I’ve heard of them but never used them and don’t know what they do. 😂 I need to nest sheets inside sheets.
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  • blue.peter
    blue.peter Posts: 1,359 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    I think a spreadsheet is a goer. The problem is I have a few different accounts and systems and limited excel skills. Oh well it’s a good opportunity to practice.
    Or you could get a dedicated money management program. In effect, it's a spreadsheet with all the necessary functionality already built in. Take a look at AceMoney or MoneyManager Ex (see links in my earlier post above). MMEx is free. I currently have AceMoney set up with:
    • 3 current accounts (one of which is PayPal)
    • 2 credit cards
    • 18 savings accounts (some easy access, some regular savers)
    • a large number of closed accounts (not normally visible, but easily accessible if I want to look anything up).
    If I had a mortgage or any loans, I could easily add them. Indeed, when I lent some money to a family member a while ago, I set that up as a loan account in AceMoney - it's since been repaid, and is now one of the hidden closed accounts.

    AceMoney also has scheduling functionality, to cater for future transactions, and reporting capability.

    Of course a spreadsheet is good enough. But a proper money management program makes everything easier, once you've spent a little time familiarising yourself with it.

  • theoretica
    theoretica Posts: 12,691 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    Much like doing the laundry really, it isn't itself interesting, but life works better if it gets done.
    But a banker, engaged at enormous expense,
    Had the whole of their cash in his care.
    Lewis Carroll
  • As above really. How do you stay motivated with budgeting long term. I tend to do it for about a month and then slip back to bad habits which is what I've been doing recently. I have pots for spending and saving but what else? A job for every pound? Write down all your spends? Both are things I don't do. What would you recommend to keep control?

    Thanks.
    I have budgeted all my life but the system changes according to circumstances.  Years ago when money was tight I relied on spreadsheets and recording all spends and the budget was pretty much worked out to the penny.  I would deduct spends from each category.  My motivation was me liking the feeling of being in control of my finances and peace of mind. 

    Years later we have more than sufficient income for our needs so the system is much more simple and I no longer budget to the penny or pound.  I do not use spreadsheets any more  but I do rely on the spending app tracker on my mobile banking app and savings spaces on my bank account. Budgeting is the shuffling of money around on payday to savings accounts and savings spaces and then I forget about it until the next payday although I do check on the spending app as to how much we have left for disposable discretionary spending occasionally through the month. My motivation for still budgeting is that I can plan for things like holidays and new furniture etc and know how much we need to save to cover the cost of them. 

    When you say bad habits do you mean bad spending habits or just not doing a budget?  Our motivation was we were saving long term for early retirement and we are now in fact retired so you could say that technically our goals have been reached but we still have mini goals like replacing the cars, going on holiday, christmas and birthdays etc etc. 
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  • Lions_89
    Lions_89 Posts: 151 Forumite
    100 Posts
    On pay day, I move money away into savings accounts and it stays there. Any overspend I use a cc and pay it off next month. That way I don’t like to spend on the cc unless I have to. It forces me not to spend too much. The savings are never touched.
  • I have a new system in place which has taken me ages to work out, literally years of getting my head around it, I don't want to put you off, I have other things to battle as well. Anyhow the long and short of it, I have a worked out what I can accept for a weekly spend (on food/petrol/disposable/gifts/beauty etc) which I am allowing £120 per week, then by the end of the week I will have £85 left to save roughly speaking, anything I don't spend rolls over, I could choose to add this to savings, but I haven't been doing this long. Also I haven't mentioned the bill money is set aside, and worked out on a spreadsheet, you can just jot down all the bills due to come out, (I try and keep all direct debits monthly, however once I have a savings pot, I will pay for things like car insurance, contents insurance in one go to make it cheaper). 

    My goal at present is to save for completing bathroom and tiling and work top replace in kitchen, this keeps me motivated to stick to the plan, as I could easily fall off the bandwagon so to speak. Where my disposable income is kept I keep it in one account and I only have that card in my wallet - the bonus is if my wallet gets stolen or lost I will have max £120 on the card! also It is easy to keep a track of everyhting that gets spent - for big ticket items it might be worth using the credit card, for section 75 claims.
  • Nasqueron
    Nasqueron Posts: 10,652 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    I have a spreadsheet running to December 2025 with all my current direct debits (I obviously adjust them when they go up) along with a predicted credit card bill - it allows me to balance pushing salary into a Kroo account to earn interest and bringing it back into my main account the day before bills are due. It's a real eye opener as you can see if you are running out of money and take steps early to cut back or rebalance things 

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