I've just done a budgeting spreadsheet - shocked!

[Allnewtometoo]

Where does the money go?? I do know i have a bit of a "frittering away" habit. Buying a drink at work, getting the dc snacks from the petrol station, that sort of thing but jesus I cannot believe how much I should have "leftover" each month. I know that on paper can be different to reality but even so, this is mind boggling.

Can anyone recommend a way to sort myself out? Is there a plan/program/book?

I know some of you will say "just stop spending" but I feel like I need more than that.

I've previously read about sone sort of budgeting app but can't remember what it was called.

Get yourself a mini cafetière and make your own coffee at work.

Stop buying crap snacks from petroleum stations.

Write down every single penny you spend and add it up weekly.

Do this for a month and review.

If u know kids want snacks, buy with shopping. Petrol station is for petrol. Limit yourself to one takeaway coffee a week. If you think you will struggle to go vold turkey set urself a budget, e.g. 5 pound a week orv10 that you can fritter. That will probably be over 450 a year though, taking into account hols from work?

I removed Apple Pay and didn't take my cards out with me. I found the only way to stop spending was to literally have no way to spend anything. "I have no money on me, sorry" soon puts a stop to snack requests!

I also get groceries online so I stay within a weekly budget.

I've been logging every penny spent for 10yrs (accounts nerd). It's quite shocking at first to see money fly out of the account or build up on the credit card.

Get a decent cool bags to take snacks with you. Invest in a good flask.

The little things do add up sadly

You need to include everything, have you? Like haircuts, holidays, food, petrol, birthdays, Christmas, etc.

If I just look at bills only I’d have so much money left but no point doing that. My holidays are £600 per month, £100 on petrol, £100 for kids bday/xmas, £80 for family bdays/xmas. I have lots of different bank accounts and money set up to go to these accounts by standing order each month.

go through your bank statements from the last 3-4 months or more for more accurate spends over the year.

You need to do x2 things, get an app like Snoop or YNAB which will categorise every single spend so you can see monthly totals for different things like groceries, eating out, bdays, whatever you like. This way you can keep on eye on spending. You can also include savings accounts and credit cards across multiple banks and it will give you your total current balance. (There’s no way I would do this on a spreadsheet when I have so many little transactions, big ones, direct debits, etc)

Secondly, you need to fill in the budgeting spreadsheet on the Money saving expert website to list / approximate everything you expect to spend in a week/ month / year to see where all your spending will go, how much to stick to for a budget in each category and how much you can expect to save

Something that I find helpful to keep the „frittering“ impulse in check: I have a current account and an easy saver account. Current account has 0.5% interest, saver has 3.75%. I can shift money between them very easily on my banking app.

So when I receive my salary into my current account I shift most of it into savings straight away, minus any direct debits and a small buffer.
This has the effect that I think more deliberately about any quick card purchases.

For example, even at the beginning of the month I might have only £20 in my current account. Do I really want to spend £3.50 of that on a coffee? Psychologically it feels more than if I had for example £2000 in my account at that point.
Plus it’s nice to see the interest accumulate on the savings account, an extra motivation to keep it in there for longer if I can.

Works for me anyway!

What might help is to have a small spending account and put all other funds in savings. Then once it's gone, its gone, similar to the cash envelope hack.

Learn to say no to requests. We don't eat or drink out, we take a bottle of water in the car. We make plans in between meal times so we go home to eat. We've been known to nip to Tesco for a 4 pack of ice creams instead of buying from an ice cream parlor/ cafe.

I don't buy the kids toys or tat when out, they have their own spending money for that.

Stop all takeaway goods.

I’ve just gone back to doing this. I did it for years and it worked really well, but I got out of the habit recently and I’m shocked at how much I’ve frittered away on Apple Pay and my credit card. Knowing there is only a small amount on my card to last the week makes you stop and think about what you spend.

Try listening to the Financielle podcasts, or signing up to their app. They talk a lot about budgeting with sinking funds - so decide what your frittering budget it, and when it’s gone then there’s no more frittering that month. It’s the premise that going cold turkey is setting yourself up to fail, it’s more about doing the fun things within budget.

I felt like you once, questioning why I didn't have any money left at the end of the month (or rather being in my overdraft!). So for over 20 years now I log all my outgoings on a simple spreadsheet. I have a monthly budget for bills which i tick off once they've gone out and then a modest personal allowance which I log my spending against. I find it helps me keep on track. I save up for big purchases. I can then also spot what I'm spending my money on. I also prefer to take my own drinks/lunch to work and I think that helps lower weekday spending.

I have a weekly budget that I transfer in to a spending current account. It used to be in my purse years ago when using cash only.

I transfer it on a Friday and it lasts me until the following Friday. It gets me my food shopping and any treats, extras or sometimes cinema etc. Dh has the same amount but doesn't have a separate account and hes not as strict and often goes over. I think the act of having a separate account really helps create a barrier in my brain. "This is the amount I have left til Friday".

It also depends where you live (as I have just been visiting London and I realise everything is just tapped there on contactless - its more possible where I live) but if you can get out the amount in cash, even just for a few weeks it really can help you see the actual money dwindling in your purse.

We’ve found the Dave Ramsey stuff really helpful.

So I love going out with the kids but food /drink always doubles the price. Definitely save there, drop takeaway coffee. If you read join a library. Clothes from Vinted.

i use a budgeting app called spending. It tracks my outgoings and helps me see where I’m spending.

Is You need a budget worth it does anyone think?

Receipts.
Keep ever single one. Then put them in a pile of "things I am glad I spent the money on" and "urgh"

We did a bit of analysis of what we were spending money on. It was clear there was lots is waste. Wrote down all the big costs for a year and divided that amount by 12. We now put that amount away in a separate account each month so we know we can cover it. It’s obviously not foolproof because it depends when things come out of your account, but if you were able to do it this year for next it may help. We then worked out what we needed realistically for food, petrol and extras each week and how that compared to what we can afford. We now have a set amount for each week and write down every spend in a shared iPhone note. Helps to see it week by week and see when we start to get low for the week. Means we stay on track rather than not paying attention, blowing the wages in week one or two then struggling in weeks three and four.

I think it depends on how keen you are to completely track all spending, how much spending you have and how many people this covers (we have a 5k income and spending all over the place for x2 adults and x2 children, lots of house expenditure, loads of transactions)
if you have to time to go through all your spending and put it on a spreadsheet that’s fine but it’s not for me. I also want to see our total wealth (including savings and debt) which updates daily and connects to the bank accounts

I fritter away too.

I did get into the below habits which really helped and are really easy once you get into the habit. I need to get back in the habit.

• if I was going to buy crap in the petrol station, I would stop and move the money I would have spent into a different account immedsiatroy. It grows really fast which is depressing because it makes you realise how much you spend normally. But equally it grows fast which is encouraging.
• check bank accounts every few days. It makes you stop and think.
• I did use the envelope system for a while but I dont really use cash now and it doesnt work digitally for me. But it works for some people.
• if you have say £400 spending money each month, move it all into account a on payday. Then, every Monday move £80 from account a into account b. You can only spend from account b and cant move more money into it during the week. At the start of the week, you can move money from account a to account b to top it back up to £80. At the end of the month move everything left in account a and b to savings and start again. It isnt as complicated as it sounds, it takes a few minutes each week and really does manage your frittering. By not moving everything each week, you will always get the buzz of moving money into savings at the end of the month.

I've just signed up for the free trial of Ynab and honestly finding it way too complicated because im in my overdraft. So I dobt have actual money to assign.

I found socialising cost me so much.

going down to London to visit friends and the money just flew away! I limit my overnight stays now to max one per month and if I can see a matinee and meet friends for lunch rather than evening and hotel plus breakfast etc it does kerp
it down a bit.

i do have an annual summer overspend though as socialising is so much easier then.

If you are already in debt I suggest you go on money saving expert debt free wannabe area.

Start using cash and be very very strict about what to use it on so your overdraft reduces each month.

I have about 11 basic savers accounts. They each have a different name for example
My personal spends
Clothes funds
Shopping
Petrol
House bits
Bills
Joint shopping
Savings
Rainy day fund
Every month we divide our wages into all of these categories. Whatever doesn't get spent in each pot gets either transferred to an ISA or left to accumulate.
Works great for us. Especially the kids clothing fund, we pop £50/100 in there a month for new shoes, going up a size, rain coat etc. And whatever doesn't get spent we let it accumulate over the year and then it pays for all the uniform by September ☺️ then you don't really feel the pinch. Now that I think about it I might open another and call it special occasions 🤔