General budgeting!

[NEmum]

My husband & I are horrendous at budgeting. He has a good wage so we have always just spent what we wanted & have no savings at all. So I've had enough & decided to take control - which he is genuinely v v happy about. We want to move house in the next 18 months & would like to be less wasteful.

So can you share what budgeting tips/system work for you?? So far all I can think of is to write everything down as a shock to the system...

A little bit of info about us to help if required;
Partner is self employed.
Combined we earn 100k after tax
In mortgaged property
Have 2x properties which are currently rented out (would like to use savings to cover any emergencies related to them)
We socialise regularly
We do not have any fees related to child caring
Have overdrafts & credit cards (currently on 0% & we switch these when required)

[t875]

I don't have any major ideas, but didn't want to leave and run. Will be interesting watching to see what people say. Possibly might be worth an idea for you to see how much you are socialising with and if you can budget that? Although its hard as we have to socialise too!!

Good luck!

[Thecontentedcat]

We have used ynab and good budget apps, both are good. Once you know where your money is going it is easier to save, first few months were hard though!

[tribpot]

How much debt do you have? It may be on 0% cards but it's still debt.

I would second YNAB - have a look at the tutorials as it's the method that makes a big difference. Essential it forces you to recognise that old saying that you can only spend every pound once. So you work out what money you have available in the month (you always budget on a calendar month, when you get paid is irrelevant), what you need to spend it on, plus what are the less frequent or predicable expenses, like car repairs or house insurance. You assign the money to budget categories, track your spend against them and then if you max out your socialising budget, say, you've got to take it from somewhere else or go without. Meaning you would have to make a stark choice to take the money out of your 'moving house' savings pot simply to go out on the piss.

It takes a few months to get the hang of it all but even a month of patchy budgeting is better than a month of no budgeting at all.

[rattieofcarcassone]

We use YNAB. It works brilliantly for us but you do have to keep on top of it!