How do you budget?

[Dontgiveamonkeys1350]

I’m taking over the financial reins in our family. The way we had been doing it wasn’t working before. So I wanted to pick peoples brains on here about how you do it.

Do you have a separate account for ur bills.

Do you budget for money weekly

Do you have a strict food budget and take that out weekly.

Do you always have less money at the end of the month than u think u do.

Do u budget within an inch of ur life or do u wing it.

Really hoping to get some good ideas here to make it easier to keep a track of the in going me and out going’s.

Do you write stuff down everyday you have spent and take it off the total.

Let me know how you do this. As I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by taking this on. It makes sense for me to do this as I’m now at home most of the time and my husband is at work. I just want to get this right.

I have “envelope” accounts

So add all my bills up to get a monthly amount

Use money advice service budget - as it does everything for me like a calculator but gives a monthly figure for everything

All income goes into one account
Then I pay the bills money into the bills account on pay day,
along with a motorcar account for insurance, MoT,
savings account.
Pay day also sees my pocket money get paid into another bank account for the month and money into anither savings account.

I have two monthly savings accounts

Then my pocket money account has to last me the month, it’s for shopping, petrol and anything else - there is never enough and I’m always short at the end of the month... but here’s the thing, if I gave myself more pocket money there’d still not be enough so I’m a bit tight with myself and if I am really desperate then I have to bing myself a twenty. This way though I don’t overspend massively

I tend have odd bits of money, like child benefit, stashed in a separate account that I only use at Christmas/holidays or in an emergency. I move as large a chunk of money as I can get away with into a savings account as soon as we get paid - sometimes I need to dip into it before the end of the month. I plan meals and shop weekly. We each have a small amount to spend just on ourselves each month. I bank online and check how we are doing most days. What I notice that our spending isn’t very even week to week, but it tends to be fairly even over the whole month. I don’t budget exactly, but I do keep a close eye on it.