To wonder where all my money goes?

[Oohgossip]

Household income of around £75,000 in the midlands so around 4500 a month.

We don’t live like kings yet seem to live pay check to pay check.

Mortgage and associated bills of around 1500. 2 children, £300 a month childcare. We rent our cars and have one hol a year. Kids don’t want for anything but I haven’t spent a penny on myself in years.

Hands up, we don’t budget.

Where the hell does the money go?

I think Tesco takes all my money 😂

Any recommendations for apps etc to track things?

I have found it's easier to budget food when I do the food shop online. You only get what you need and are not tempted by those impulse buys.

Time to go old school maybe? Challenge for a month:

Picnics and thermos, walk in the woods rather than cinema or shopping centre.
Swap expensive days out for hosting a bbq with friends. Ask them to bring a pudding.
Meal plan for the week, food budget.
Shop your wardrobe rather than buying new stuff.
Wash the car yourself.
Ditch takeaways and make a few pizzas with the kids.
Stop drinking alcohol for a month.
Get the board games out and play as a family.
Check for insurance, broadband and utility swaps.
At the end of the month you will have £££ left!
Declutter and sell a few bits on Facebook marketplace.

Another vote for Monzo- it's changed my financial life. I've managed to actually have some money left for savings since using it.

With monzo is it actually a bank account or is it just an app to help you budget??

I.e can you use monzo but bank with Natwest?

Monzo is a bank account, with an app that shows you what you have spent where.

You can use it as a full bank account, a bills account or a spending account, eg, you could get all your money paid into your Natwest account and then have an amount transferred to a Monzo account each month for petrol, food, spending, or whatever you like. You could even have more than one account if you want o separate essentials from discretionary items for example. I think you can have them with or without overdraft, so if you spend up, you can't use the card.

The above is based on my experience with Starling, which offers more or less the same type of account, but I mainly use mine for overseas spending because it is charge free and the exchange rate is better than buying currency in the UK.

That does sound like an awful lot of spending OP. I would have thought you should have enough for savings at the end of each month unless you are overpaying into a pension pot or both have very expensive cars, multiple holidays a year etc.

I was in this position, sort of, at one point -- well before apps, but when I had recently got a computer. I ought to have had quite enough money and I simply didn't seem to. I started with what I actually spent, every single day.

What I did was open a text file in the computer called "receipts" plus the month, at the beginning of one month, and put absolutely every single penny that I spent into it, in columns with tabs so they were orderly:

date.... what it was .... shop, town .... cost

(the cost is in a column 000.00 for pounds and pence). I included all receipts, and the small things that didn't actually have receipts like money I gave for the Big Issue, or put into any charity tins, as well as council tax, electricity, petrol, and all the big expenditures that don't have receipts exactly, just bills.

I did it for three months (which is a quarter and seems to be the period bills come by), and it made it absolutely obvious what I was spending on what, and which things I didn't really need.

I have been doing it for years and years ever since, and it still makes me notice that I really didn't need that impulse-buy that I haven't used, or that there seems to have been an awful lot of butter one week, and so on. It doesn't help for the unexpected things like needing a new tyre on the car because the edge of a road burst it, but it's pretty good for catching things that are just silliness. Like buying a huge roll of dustbin-liners that seemed like a good bargain if only I hadn't thought exactly the same thing four weeks running and ended up with bin-liners for the next five years...

Transfer a regular amount of money into a savings account the day after you get paid, or what's left a few days before.

The latest version of MS Excel has a finance template.
You need to write down everything you spend and possibly breakdown categories of Tesco items eg alcohol, household cleaners, food etc to see where the biggest spend is

Renting cars doesn’t sound very cost efficient.

Food might be a place to start, try shopping at Aldi. Always make a food list and meal plan at the start of the week, get everything you need in and try to avoid popping to the shop mid week for crap.

Do you eat out often? Shop online too much? Get take aways a lot?

Income £4500 a month with 2 kids??

The OP doesn't need to save money or shop at Aldi - they are commonly what's known as 'loaded'.

After childcare and mortgage paid, there is £2700 to spend. The OP hasn't been back - wondering if this is for real.

I think it's really easy to get into this position. Especially if you use contactless and don't keep a track of what you are spending. I'm terrible for it. I earn £43k and have one child and I'm finding that in in the same position every month but really shouldn't be so it was also on my to do list for this week for me to sort it out. For me it's eating out, costly activities on a weekend and just buying bits, that I probably don't really need.

2 adults and 2 children should only £70 for food

I have found it's easier to budget food when I do the food shop online. You only get what you need and are not tempted by those impulse buys.

Also this. I do what they call ClickList at my grocery, I order what I want, and then go pick it up. It costs $5, but I save so much more than that by not spending an hour wandering around the grocery.

OP when you say the kids don't want for anything is this where the money is going?
Family days out can be a shocker when you add up the cost of petrol, entry to an attraction, lunch and ice creams. I got burnt a few times before I discovered Tesco Clubcard deals and packed a picnic.
It's easy to spend a fortune on kids clothes if you buy full price from Next etc.

Set a budget, work out your expenditure, put money aside at the start of the month to pay down debt if you have it or in to savings if you don't. Live within your budget and learn to cook more cheaply.

To answer a few questions -

The cars are £300 a month to lease, was cheapest way I found of sorting two new cars.

I use vouchers, sales and comparison sites regularly so avidly save in that regard. I also meal plan.

I do think dh is responsible for a lot of the frittering (he can go to the shop twice a week and drop £20 a time on nothingness) so have been wanting to budget for a while, but he’s not keen.... our differing attitudes to money is another thread!

I guess a previous poster summed it up, on the amount of ‘spare’ money we have after bills I feel we should have tons to save, so the fact we’re not saving means something’s being wasted.

Oh and I love Aldi 😂

YNAB.

The first month is a pain as you need to get into the habit of updating it & you sort out what categories you need but after that it's easy.
You can have it on your phones too so you can enter every payment as you make it.
Month 1, just spend as per usual but keep the records updated.

Month 2, start propagating the sheets with the things like direct debits etc... & gasp when you find out how much those odd coffees or whatever it is every single day actually cost over the course of month 1.
You'll also be able to see how much you are paying on things like interest if you have lines of credit in use.
A lot of your money will be going on nonsense.

I know to the penny how much is in each of my accounts, when every bill is due & I have accrued enough data to have pretty accurate estimates on how much each utility bill will be, my average shopping costs over a month etc...
I check with YNAB how much I have because it is more accurate than my bank who may not yet have taken out a payment depending which company I've spent with.

No app in the world is going to work though if you both don't enter the information.

I am on a far lower income than you & the money I 'live on' in my budget this month was already in place before the month started.
All thanks to YNAB.

Allow each adult £200 spends per month . Save £1000 as soon as you’re paid. If it’s not in your account you can’t spend it.

Is it just groceries that your DH overspends on or is it things like hobbies, gadgets, work lunches, coffee, socialising, clothes or whatever?

Is there anything 'big' that he wishes you could afford that you would be able to if you cut down on day to day spending?

What about retirement and financial security in general? Do you have decent pensions? What would happen if one of you lost your job and couldn't find something else on similar pay? Do you both earn similar amounts or is one of you the bigger earner?

You need to make him see that free spending on nothing much is risking future financial security and/or stopping you from having 'big' treats, or maybe moving house or doing anything big to your current one eg new roof or windows.

How old are DC? Will you be able to help them financially if they go to university, because on your income you will be expected to.

I agree with giving each adult a set amount of personal spending money after some decent savings have been put away but many think that is controlling, which I don't agree with when the alternative is frittering loads of money on crap.

Kids don’t want for anything

Thats where its going OP

I can't find an free app that I like, to analyse all my bank statements and a credit card etc.
I really should do this!

You should have such a good lifestyle on that amount! We have a budget for food, petrol etc..We allow £70 for food a week for example. We take out in cash and go to Lidl, write a list and don't go over. We actually set a budget for whole week for food, petrol, dinner money, a little bit of spending and take this out in cash for the week. X

Thanks for the Alvin Hall tip.