How do you budget / run your bank account?

[NorthernGirlie]

Inspired by the "how skint are you?" thread

We have a Santaner joint account and separate accounts with different banks

-When we get paid we put x amount in the joint account for mortgage, bills, food, ds, family stuff
-We each put money in joint savings and some into ds' savings. Both within santander

My Natwest account has:
-current account
-my savings
-holiday savings (we both pay in each month)
-ds' current account (he's 11)

There are no more 'pots' available to have in either account but I'd like to allocate amounts to things (weekends away with the girls / dh birthday etc)

i'm organising a big hen do - all the money from 23 people will come to me but I've nowhere to put it that isn't mixed with my savings

We haven't got loads by the way - 2 average salaries but small mortgage and low outgoings means we can save a few quid here and there!

Is there an easy way of managing money in little pots online?

I get paid salary into one personal account, then immediately transfer joint bill money (1/2 mortgage, utilities, food budget etc) into a joint current account, my personal direct debits into another personal account, some into joint savings account, the remainder into a Starling Account.

A few days later, a standing order transfers money into Holiday, Christmas, & Car pots within my Starling account.
This means that everything left in my main Starling account can be spent.
Child benefit gets paid into Starling, and transferred to a Children pot to pay for irregular kids’ expenses (clothes, school trips etc).
A couple weeks later I get a bit of extra income, and a standing order moves most of that into a regular saver. This is my long-term savings for the kids.
Anything left in my main Starling at the end of the month goes into my Everyday Savings Starling pot.

Writing this down it sounds complicated! But in reality it runs very smoothly, I always know where I am with money, and know my bills will always be paid. It’s probably a little more complicated than necessary because I’ve engineered things to take advantage of higher interest rate accounts. There’s 4 banks involved in it.

I don’t think there’s necessarily a right or wrong way to do things, different methods will work for different people. I would say that accounts with pots are generally fantastic for organising though (starling, monzo etc)

I've just downloaded Monzo - did anyone else worry about moving money to an App? It just seems so weird and scammy!

I know it's not - they have millions of users. It just seems strange to do!

Just a current account

One bank, 4 (5) accounts.

One, my main - salary gets paid in, all bills, including mortgage (imaginary account 5) come out of this.

Two, general savings. I aim to save £300pcm.

Three, my fun spends. Gets around £50-100 every month and pretty much gets depleted at that rate - shoes, clothes, birthdays, days out.

Four, my car fund. Gets £100-250 every month. For insurance, tax and repairs, as well as savings when the thing needs replacing.

Funds get allocated on the day I get paid, anything left over in my main account after bills is food and general spending money.

Nope it’s a bank with a banking licence just no branches. Most of the high street banks are closing most of their branches anyway!

I went for monzo - thanks for all the advice! It's perfect for what I need!

I was a bit worried about monzo initially but it's approved.
Tbf in the 5 years I have had it I have had far far less issues than a high street bank.

Can't recommend it enough