How do you stay organised with finances?

[BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz]

I am aiming for financial organisational perfection for 2020.

Im generally fairly organised and we don't spend a lot generally but we are absoloutley no way on top of finances. Always in the green (ish) but never know how much and no savings etc.

I need all your best tips to get on top of this.

Rather than cutting back on coffee out etc or hair cuts.

First, write down all bills and non negotiable.

Take that away from incoming what's left?

Next essentials... Petrol, work travel... Food.

What's left... Divide into fun stuff... Personal spending eg hair, treat.
Holidays.
Bday.
Xmas.
Weekley social fun.

Go back tighten up all bills... Best phone contract, best leccy...

What's a monzo card?

Op I think basis of Al tips on threads like this is to simply have multi pots for everything.... Feed into the multi pots. Then nothing gets robbed or taken from elsewhere.

Much like pp we have multiple accounts.

All wages mine and dps goes into one account and this account also pays all bills.

A weekly standing order goes into an account we do not touch and don’t have easy access to, we treat this as a bill that comes out weekly and make sure we budget for it.

Any spare money after bills then gets split to a further three accounts. A share goes into account that covers expenses for the children and days out, birthday gifts etc, and then a small amount each week as spending money into each mine and dps account. That way if one of us chooses to buy lunches every day and use all their money that’s up to them.

Most accounts also do save the change now, which rounds up your spending and puts the difference in a savings account. This money we will save and use as a treat for ourselves (although it’s never a massive amount)

I also try and plan the coming three to four months so I know what is coming up.

We each have our own current account and pay an amount into a joint current scout to cover bills, petrol, food, DC clothes etc. Have 2 regular standing orders out of it - one for holidays and one for Christmas and birthday. DH and I then have our own disposable income to do with what we like in our own current accounts, but if the joint account is running low we'll both top it up. We get a notification from the bank if the joint account falls below a specified amount.

@Winterisnigh I’m struggling to think how to explain it! But it’s basically a card you preload - we’re using it as an alternative to drawing out X amount of cash per week so I’ll transfer the amount from our current account to the Monzo. There’s an app which is really user friendly and you can see how much you have available and how much you’ve spent etc.

I have a current account, a direct debits account and an ISA savings account.

Money comes in to the current account.

The day after pay day a standing order goes to the direct debits account which basically covers all the annual DDs divided by 12. Each March I up it by whatever percentage I think I need after looking ahead to the likely increased costs each year.

On payday I also transfer some money to savings and some to overpay the mortgage. The amount varies as I try to work out roughly what my expenditure will be over the next month. Roughly weekly I may top up savings and mortgage overpayment depending on how much I have to pay out.

What I find really useful though is having a buffer in every account that I treat as a zero balance. That way if something unexpected crops up I can cover it without worrying.

I've switched my main account to Monzo, and with the "pots" feature it's like having multiple accounts.

On the 27th: salary goes into current account
On the 1st:

• all DDs paid from current account
• money goes into emergency fund pot (interest-earning)
• money goes into various short-term savings pots
• money goes into S&S ISA

I have a spreadsheet where I keep track of all my main expenditure, and whatever is left over after all that is fun money for the month. When I start building up excess fun money, I put a chunk into savings (I'm not on a high wage, but I have no kids and I don't go out much or buy much for myself).

My spreadsheet tells me my salary is divided into 40% bills (this includes weekly food shop), 35% savings (short and long term), and 25% spending money.

DP and I have separate finances, the kids stuff comes out of child benefit and DS gets dla aswell which is strictly just used for him. When I get paid I put all the money where it’s suppose to go, I never spend more than £170 on my credit cards so I always have that available. Whatever’s left is mine to spend on whatever I please,