Budget Planner Discussion Area

birch_2

Is there going to be a budget planner for microsoft insead of excel, i dont like to use the online one.

phinch

PLEASE someone help me. I can't open the spreadsheet and am getting desperate to get a budget sheet up & running.

sinking_fast_3

Hi does anyone have any advice on how to tackle a budget planner when you have no idea of future income? My husband is self employed and his income is intermittant. There is not any pattern that I can see i.e. not seasonal. Income depends entirely upon 'what comes in next week'. This makes it very difficult to plan a budget. I can put in all our expenditure but it means nothing if the budget goes out the window in a fortnights time because he has no work that week. Has anyone else had this problem and if so how did you straighten things out? Thanks

EagerLearner

Hi guys - give the spreadsheet below a go if you want something quick & easy - over 14,000 MSE downloads so far and it's a good add-on to Martins. Hope it helps :beer:

teke

MSE_Andrea wrote:

Click reply to discuss the Budget Planner

Hi

I am really interested in the Monthly Food Planner. How can I obtain a copy of this?

mrs_deadline

sinking_fast wrote:

Hi does anyone have any advice on how to tackle a budget planner when you have no idea of future income? My husband is self employed and his income is intermittant. There is not any pattern that I can see i.e. not seasonal. Income depends entirely upon 'what comes in next week'. This makes it very difficult to plan a budget. I can put in all our expenditure but it means nothing if the budget goes out the window in a fortnights time because he has no work that week. Has anyone else had this problem and if so how did you straighten things out? Thanks

Good point!

It's impossible to plan with absolute reliability because a) you don't know how much work will come in, and b) you don't know how long people will take to pay you.

It takes a different mindset to cope with irregular income. What it boils down to is, you can't spend what you haven't got and might never get. So in terms of budgeting, the only advice is "get ahead of yourself" which you do by prioritising "saving over spending".

I only got to grips with budgeting by getting a couple of months ahead, which has taken me nearly five years of self-employment to achieve. I am now in a position to budget based on the income that came in the previous month (which may have been earned and invoiced two or three months ago).

I save a fresh copy of the planner for each month, with my "Monthly desired" amounts already entered (Part C of the MSE Budget Planner), based on my average monthly earnings. They are my guidelines for the amounts I need to be saving and (only if necessary!) spending, and they are the same each month. I can't always stretch to absolutely everything because they're based on average not actual income, but it helps me to prioritise.

Last month's total business receipts plus child benefit goes into the income box on the Budget Planner at the beginning of the month. I then go down the Part A column and fill in absolute essential spending and saving (Tax and NI saving is essential just like bills), then other items in order of priority. In tight months I aim to cut back on spends rather than saves. Saving is the key. A good one-third to a half of a self-employed budget should be savings, not less than a third or paying the Inland Revenue will be a horrible ordeal and leave you back where you started.

If average income isn't more than enough to cover all your desired saving and expenditure, and/or you don't have savings to fall back on, and you can't see any way of boosting earnings drastically within a few months, then self-employment probably isn't the right thing to be doing.

I think self-employed people should be given much better incentives to save, considering our irregular income and the whacking great tax bills we have to pay twice a year. I feel a letter to my MP coming on...

sinking_fast_3

Thanks so much mrs-deadline, you make so much sense! I havent been thinking beyond week-to-week and the idea of actually getting a savings pot to treat as current income never occured to me. So obvious now that you've pointed it out. It's going to be a real stuggle but I can see it's the only way.

I have been concentrating on reducing expenditure but that doesn't work if you have just paid extra off the credit card and then the income you expected doesnt materialise. I can see now that I've got to do the two together with the priority on saving and maybe leave the debts ticking over on minimum payment until I have savings to cover 3 months of 'average' income. I can then start to see how I can budget properly and aim at reducing debt and expenditure in a less risky way. It's going to take a long time to save enough money and I can easily see why it took you 5 years!

I will have to study the budget planner again with your advice in mind.. Thanks again sooo much.

Chez1D

Please could I have a copy of the Monthly Food Planner

Thanks
Chez

stphnstevey

Dear Eagerlearner,

I found your spreadsheet really good. I customised it a bit for myself and added the following features that I think might help improve it and help other moneysavers interpret their raw data easily:

a) Added a pie chart for both Income and Expenses (just used category headings eg. home, insurance, eating/drinking/smoking etc and their respective totals rather than each individual thing under these headings).

This way I could visual see at a glance the category where the biggest proportion of my spending was and also the sources of income I have and their proportions (some people have more than one source of income).

b) I also added a NET WORTH workbook page. This simply listed my assets (eg. property, shares, antiques etc.) in one column and debts (mortgages, credit cards, loans etc.) in another next to it. Totalling them each at the bottom (the debts being a negative figure) and then adding the two figures together. The total could be negative (ie more debt than assets) or positive (more assets than debt).

This allows MoneySavers to compare their asset to debt ratio.

I hope this might be useful and give you some thoughts on the next version of the budget planner maybe?

Kind regards

Me

teke

solaj wrote:

Yes, I will be interested in the monthly food planner...

Hi

Did you happen to get a copy of the food planner? If so, would you be able to post it on the forum so that I can download it?

Thanks