help me settle a finance discussion with DP

[jprx59]

We manage our finances separately (I think his way is too complicated and not in the real world!) but we've got into a heated discussion today about it and I think he sounds like a knob!

I came in after work and had a conversation about my new work pattern at the office. I said "I'm glad I'm not going to be in the office full time now, £250 a month on fuel is a lot" and he replies "no it's not, it's £5 each way" which yes it is, but it totals a big chunk out my wages each month each day.

My argument is I get paid monthly, I don't get paid on a daily rate so why would I even think to work things out that way? I don't know anyone who gets paid and at the end of the month goes well I need to account for £5 each way to and from work. Most (sorry to generalise!) people go right, I have to put £250 a side for fuel.

He thinks my way of working stuff out is a strange way and I make it sounds like it's a lot more each month by saying £250 (which it is) rather than £5 per trip each way, which it is but the total figure is still the same.

I think the majority of people say X amount per month for rent, X per month for council tax, X amount for fuel etc and take it out in lumps.

it's a light hearted discussion (kind of) between us but we both feel our way is the most common.

how do you work your finances out at the end of the month?

By the way, I don't really think he's a knob (I love him very much) but he sounds ridiculous saying £250 is not a lot on fuel! It is to me :D

I have always been paid monthly so work out everything on a monthly basis, but sometimes working things out on another basis can make it more or less reasonable. E.g. Buying a coffee....daily for cash doesn't seem like much..total it for a month can sound expensive.

He did actually compare coffee buying by saying if you went out and purchased two coffees from costa each day it would cost £4 a time... 1) I wouldn't bloody by two coffees a day from Costa! and 2) I would count that in my 'personal spending' and check my bank each day to see how much was left...

I don’t understand why this is an argument. You work out and look at things differently. Neither or you is right, neither of you is wrong.

£250 a month is a lot for fuel and if your paid monthly I would budget it monthly. I thought my DH was steep at £200 a month or £50 a week that works out at £10 a day. Although what we’ve gained I think we’ve spent in extra food.

It's not really an argument that's why I said it's a light hearted discussion but wanted to find out how most people manage their money (doesn't mean anyone else's way of working it out is wrong) as I think mine is the most common way.

Yes, it costs £10 a day in fuel Monday - Friday plus any trips I make at a weekend such as going to see parents, food shopping or running errands etc.

For expenditure that I have to spend (fuel to work, weekly supermarket, gas bill etc) everything is budgeted monthly. It has to be that way because if I didn't take that out of my monthly salary I might not have enough left at the end of the month to buy fuel for example.

Coffees, books, etc - don't monitor () but if I run out of money for coffee it doesn't matter so a daily budget for those is fine. Although the daily budget would have to be based on monthly income.

Yes I budget monthly. I don’t work our my mortgage is £20 a day etc....I think it’s far more depressing to know I spend for example £55 before I even start a days work.

Also financial it’s better to have a total cost of coffees, £2.50 doesn’t sound a lot £50 a month sounds worse

Out if curiosity, how far is that £5 getting you?

Ask DH what the daily cost if his car insurance is

I suspect you are both talking about different things. You're talking about budgeting. He's talking about comparing.

I do monthly and weekly.

So monthly for big ticket spends - savings, childcare

Or for one off monthly occurrences - phone bill, kids TKD class, sky etc

Then weekly for food and disposable.

I work our monthly expenditure -

Then divide the remaining by weeks

So petrol is £10 a week
School lunches £30 a week
Shopping X a week

And so on

You’re paid monthly and your outgoing on fuel is not calculated per journey - assuming a full tank covers multiple journeys, but you will need several tanks through the month - so thinking of it as a monthly sum makes sense.

I can see it both ways though as I used to buy a £200 per month train ticket but now I PAYG as I only travelled 3-4 times per week (pre-lockdown) so I do think of it as £12.50 per day and not a weekly/monthly amount.

We talk about stuff like that using the monthly figure.

DP saves £160 per month on fuel WFH, me probably £50.

Reporting it by the day is fine in the sense that it's correct but it'd you report it by the day to make it sound like an insignificant sum that's misleading.

In lockdown we briefly had a Friday night takeaway routine which didn't seem expensive until I looked at it as a monthly expenditure.

Having said all of that I always report the price of a pair of shoes as cost per shoe

It only makes sense to work out daily costs if you're comparing it to daily income? You can't do some elements of your budget on a daily basis and others monthly, it has to match.

It's more efficient to budget based on months or weeks than days. Does he calculate his daily council tax cost? How does he reconcile the daily elements to the monthly elements?

Psychological trickery to make your budget sound better by going "ooh only £5 petrol per day" doesn't result in more money in your account! So why waste previous time and energy breaking costs down to microscopic levels?

Generally spending should be thought of in terms of monthly expenditure, because what it costs is really almost irrelevant in total terms- it's more relevant as a proportion of your income stream.

Money is like a river- it flows in at X rate, and leaves at Y rate. If you pay £250/month in fuel and you're income is £1,000, are you happy to spend 25% of your money on fuel? Alternatively if your income was £10,000/month, you might think 0.25% of your income on fuel is fine (despite it being an identical amount). It depends what proportion of your income you spend on stuff as opposed to the actual amount.

I think I would only care about my daily commuting cost if I was deciding whether to do a day's overtime or change my working pattern in some way, e.g. spreading the same hours over more days.

For the poster asking about how many miles £5 gets me, it gets around 13 miles with usually a lot of traffic :)

@user1456324865563 I totally agree and you've described it well. I'd lose track of everything I'd have to pay if I broke everything down per day.

I do monthly and daily and weekly come to think of it.
Neither of you are wrong or rignt.

Sorry for the question (Yank here), but what are you paying for petrol in the UK these days? Prices went down here quite a lot due to lower demand and the drop in crude oil prices.

To answer OP's question, I would think of something like fuel as a weekly expense (that's how often I fill the car up normally) or a monthly expense.

I think its £1.19 per litre for petrol... somewhere around there.

The price did go down to 99p a litre (roughly a quarter is gallon ) here.
So roughly about £4/$5 per US gallon?

It's now creeping back up, it's £1.09 where I am, and was pushing towards £1.30 prior to lockdown iirc

I just paid $2.21 per US gallon, so 0.59 USD per litre (47p).

That's quite a difference.