Cheery's path to fulfilment - finishing the DIY, looking after myself, appreciating the garden 🌻

peewhyeff

Just catching up......as gripping as Destination X.

Cheery_Daff

peewhyeff said:

Just catching up......as gripping as Destination X.

Ha! It was quite exciting while it was happening! 

Well, we have finally made it home, via an additional night in a premier inn in non-touristy town on the way back. 

Had a nice time, but I don't think we'd go that far for such a short trip again, certainly not in this weather. We even considered getting the air conditioning in the car fixed at one point! (But didn't bother in the end)

Not tallied up the final spend yet - I might do that tomorrow. 

Pleased to report the house is still standing, the electricity is still on, and the cows are all in the fields, not in the garden. I did leave the dregs of a cup of tea on the kitchen table - filled with dead fruit flies but fortunately not stinky. No other mishaps, thankfully! 

So, we have tomorrow, and then I'm off on my budget solo trip away! And I'm not playing a guessing game this time But there are some things I need to do to prepare... 

* washing! 
* work out what needs packing
* pack!
* make meals - I want to take breakfasts and dinners at least, and I might make some flapjacks or similar to take, but we'll see. 

Mr C is having a belated birthday party at the weekend, so tomorrow we're going to start preparations by taking a load of stuff to the tip/charity shop. Amassed a bit of a stash over the last few weeks so it'll be good to have a clear out. I might even (shock horror) clear out the little car, which is full of stuff I removed from my office at the end of June... 

In financial-related post, we had confirmation from the mortgage company of the increased DD, so we are now making an overpayment of (I think) £18.43 per month

I also had a renewal letter for English Heritage membership. I *thought* when I bought it last August I'd opted for the option that lasted an extra few months (to the end of this year), but it appears I opted for the 20% off instead, because I only paid £57, and the renewal, due at the end of August, is £82. Definitely not worth that much for me, so I'll be cancelling, as discussed, but I'll try to get in another couple of places before it runs out. Their website wouldn't let me log in tonight, kept sending me round in circles - I'll ring before I leave on Monday morning. 

Been having a proper rethink of the budget but I'll do that in a separate post... 

Cheery_Daff

Budget ponderings

So, as many of you know, I use and love YNAB, but I'm pondering a change. Renewal (not due til the end of the year, I don't think) is £80 (£6.67 a month), and I might ditch, but I'm contemplating what to ditch it for. I love it for daily tracking, for bank reconciliations, for monthly/annual spending reports etc. I'd like a system that's straightforward for daily tracking and monthly budgeting at least. 

I can't even remember what I did before YNAB, it's been so long! Maybe more than 10 years?? (It was downloadable at first, rather than a subscription, and was installed on an old laptop I no longer have) Did I have a spreadsheet? I'm not sure I did. I certainly had a cash book at various points, mostly when I barely had any money. 

Anyway, we've got rather frittery of late, and I would also like something we can be a bit more communal about (I know theoretically Mr C could log into YNAB, but we want something more straightforward). 

I found a ledger book for £1 in a charity shop on holiday so trying to figure out how to make good use of that

@foxgloves on her thread, as I know she has a paper money book, but how are the rest of you budgeting and tracking? All suggestions welcome - feel free to be as detailed as you like

I've gotten quite used to YNAB, and have quite a lot of categories - it's easy to see them, and switch money between them. Categories don't line up with bank accounts, you just have an overall stash of money (so it doesn't matter that I'm syphoning money off to a regular saver, for example). 

I think I'm going to have to simplify categories etc considerably, so do wade in with your suggestions!

Cheery_Daff

My budget categories currently

So, for reference, here are the current categories... 

Monthly direct debits
Mortgage
Council tax
Electricity
Water
Internet
Life insurance
Mobiles for each of us
Union fees

Annual bills (saved for monthly) - not car
Gas (we're on LPG deliveries, not mains gas - top up about 2-3 times a year)
TV licence
House insurance
Web hosting (I need to check this, Mr C may not need it any more)
Subscriptions (YNAB, charities, membership orgs, including one for work)

Car
Car insurance
Breakdown
Tax
MOTs
Maintenance

Everyday household expenses
Groceries
Household stuff (non-food)
Diesel
Parking

Joint treats
Cafes
Eating out
Tickets etc
Gym (although I've cancelled this now)

Personal spends
My spends
Mr C spends (although actually we don't really 'budget' for these as such - I just track them as I'm tracking everything else)

Presents/giving
Birthdays
Christmas
Ad hoc donations
Postage of cards etc

True expenses (YNAB terminology I think - stuff that you don't necessarily have a set budget for but that does happen)
Dentist
Medical (neither of us pay for prescriptions now, but this includes over the counter medications etc)
Home maintenance (chimney sweep, septic tank emptying etc)
Home improvements (eg painting, not big stuff)
Garden & land
Replacement appliances

Savings pots
Holidays
Several project-specific home improvement pots
Household emergency (eg something going wrong with the septic tank)
Replacement car
Income replacement (I try to keep a month of my income in here, just in case - although in reality if I'm laid off for any reason they'll need to legally give me several months worth)

As it stands, that feels unwieldy to keep track of on paper, or even in a spreadsheet, but I do like the granularity...

Anyway, I'll shut up (for a little bit, at least) and see what you have to say!

rtandon27

I switched from paper to YNAB in 2016 and have never looked back!  For years it cost 40 pounds and then suddenly it doubled and is now 80, but honestly I feel it is the best discretionary expenditure we have!  OH & I  pool our resources and I just tell OH (and myself) if there is anything left to fritter after all the bills and obligations have been accounted for.  We budget for holidays and treats, so after all is said and done, OH has around 8 pounds for the month and I get 13 (city frittering costs more) - we usually end up buying mostly lottery tickets with it - true frittering as we have not won anything of note yet!

Cheery_Daff

(Sorry, didn't shut up for long!) 

Ha - rootling through my g0ggle drive, I see I did have a budget spreadsheet in 2013, although I think this must have coincided with cash book use, as it wasn't very detailed. For example, it says 'Food £30x5" - and I think I was actually taking five lots of £30 out in cash for food, so there's no record of individual transactions in the spreadsheet. There are individual transactions for other pots though, eg car maintenance, holidays, emergency fund.

There's also a 2014 bills spreadsheet, where I've tracked car maintenance, annual bills, house spending (we were starting to decorate before moving), holidays, presents, and stuff I've added to longer term savings. Again, don't seem to have tracked groceries/diesel etc. 

joedenise

I'm a YNABer like you and can't think of a better way to deal with finances.  I used to use pencil and paper but that was more tracking than budgeting.

I bought YNAB4 outright for about £60 years ago and used that up to about 2022 even though they stopped supporting it in 2016.  Never really wanted to change to the subscription version but not much choice when YNAB packed up!

edinburgher

I used a homebrew budget spreadsheet for c. 10 years. It was detailed, thorough, had formulae and didn't work! The problem is you need a database to accurately shuttle things around and plan, spreadsheets only get you so far. Not a big fan of YNAB but now over a year back in and it works 🤷🏻‍♂️ Maybe not the answer you'd hoped for?

One spreadsheet issue was that I had periodic issues where something unexpected turned up and scared the crap out of me. I'm maybe being arrogant but I think that was a spreadsheet limitation (not a me limitation) as I was pretty damn diligent 

PennysIntoPounds

My circumstances and budget aren't similar to yours but I have the zopa banking app that allows you to set up and name pots, so I can divide my money into those categories when funds come in.
For daily living I use my current account and have a set amount allocated for the month for essentials/going out/treats and I write the amount for the month and the week in my diary and subtract from it when money has been spent. That way I can see how tight I'm getting per week and if I choose to go over into the monthly budget, the amount remaining gets divided for the remaining weeks. If I happen to get to the last week with no money then that is tough luck for me, I gave myself enough warning! 

Bargainhunter30

I bank with RBS and Nationwide and both now have options for budgeting. I spend everything through RBS so use that one and I like it. Nationwide is personal spends, so haven't tried that one.