Home Budgetting

peteuk

I need to control my budget better and start saving money. 

At present I have an excel spreadsheet which tracks my reuglaur payments but its not 100%.  Does anyone have any suggestions of free programes or downloadable excel templates that work?

kimwp

As someone who has tried budgeting and learned some lessons, I'd say the three things to keep to a budget successfully (assuming essential outgoing are less than income) are:
1. Plan really well - you need to know what and when you will be spending in your next budgeting period. 
2. Review your remaining budget for that period (ideally split into categories) frequently - once a week.
3. The ability to not spend once your budget has gone. It helps to over budget for essentials, like food, so you don't run out of money to eat.

The tool you use is pretty irrelevant. I use a spreadsheet and an app called fudget which lets me create different money pots and shows spend and remaining funds as I add items of spend.

mr_stripey

as someone who has tried, and failed many times to budget I would say my thoughts are as follows:

The downfall of most budgets is that they fail to take care of of the non "regulars but definitely happening expenses"

So most people will start by saying (example figures)

I earn £1000 
My rent, food, bills etc £ 300
haircuts, going out etc £ 100
 
Great I have £600 left - brilliant

But then next month the car needs new tyres or an MOT
We need to book a holiday
Holy crap, is it Christmas already?

These are the kind of bills which have been the downfall of my and I suspect many others budget

Setting aside money in "pots" for these expenses (which WILL happen) is they key. And I'm not pretending it is easy but failing to do so is the entrance to the debt cycle. "that car MOT has to go on the credit card and we'll worry about it later"

CliveOfIndia

mr_stripey said:

The downfall of most budgets is that they fail to take care of of the non "regulars but definitely happening expenses"

This is top advice.

OP, you might want to start with an SOA ( https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/financecalculators/soa.php )

It's often used over on the Debt-Free Wannabe board, but it can be really useful just for your own benefit.  If you're able to fill it out as honestly and accurately as possible, it will at least give you a view of your current situation.

And it'll allow you to split things out by "essential" (mortgage/rent, food, travel, that sort of thing), the categories alluded to by Mr. Stripey (birthdays, Christmas, holidays, car maintenance, etc.), then the "nice to have's" (takeaways, treats, whatever).

There's no need to share the results with anyone else if you don't want to, but it can be a very good way of prompting you to think of all expenses and seeing what you've realistically got left at the end of every month.

Nasqueron

A template is only as good as what you feed into it, a spreadsheet will do it all fine if you plan it far enough ahead and go through your last 12 months of bank statements to ensure everything is covered - remember annual things like insurance, subscriptions etc. I used an average for credit cards and have mine plotted out to around August 2026 at the moment though I tend to not do too much with it until after the new year as I will have things like expenses from a sport I do, Christmas gifts etc. This also helps me plan my savings - I have literally pennies in my current account as it's all sat in a Kroo account which earns 4.35% interest currently - the day before a DD is due, I move the money over to maximise interest so the sheet is full of these moves, they take seconds to do and the interest is worth it to me.

Rich1976

it’s the irregular expenses as others have said which cause the most problems as easy to work out how much your monthly bills are but then forget about all the occasional expenses:

car insurance
home insurance 
TV Licence
Water bill unless paid monthly
Breakdown cover
Boiler Service
haircuts
dentist
car service and mot
birthdays
christmas
if you have kids, any school fees or trips
eye tests/ glasses/ contact lenses
prescriptions
weekends away
holidays
travel insurance

and so on.

i just keep a simple spreadsheet but have a different tab for each month and under the relevant month I enter what irregular expense is due and the amount. That way it’s not forgotten about. It has worked well so far.

it is split into 3 sections:

Monthly Essentials - all of the regular direct debits as well as food and petrol
Pensions and Savings- monthly contributions we make 
Entertainment - everything from Spotify and Netflix subscriptions to gym membership, eating out and spending money.

the irregular expense for that month is entered under the relevant category so Tv licence would come under entertainment. 

Car service and home insurance I enter under Monthly essentials . Which whilst not monthly , it just keeps the spreadsheet easy to use.

Whitterbod

This may help , 

https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/everyday-money/budgeting

MSE_James

It's worth mentioning that MSE's budget planner spreadsheet has recently had some TLC to bring it up to date

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/budget-planning/