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?

Does the 4.5 a month count as gross or net income?

Your dh is spending approx £160 on nothing? Bet you are doing about the same but for the kids.

You need to list all bills - when did you last shop around for energy/insurance/etc?
Plus then stuff you have to pay out that isn't really a bill and see what's left.

My banking app has a new 'spending' feature and it was frightening looking at it! In April, there were 36 supermarket transactions - I'm spending double on food shopping than I thought I was! It has been fascinating unpicking it all and made me much more aware of what I'm spending

I would say £12k on supermarket shopping per year
£3.6k on car fuel
£3k on coffee shops
£2k on work lunches
That’s £20k gone

Perhaps it would help for DH and yourself to have separate accounts with money to spend on whatever you please? He can fritter than away but the shared account would be there for essentials only.

£4500 is after tax it’s a bit shameful really.

I think I’m spending way too much at supermarkets, but it’s hard to tell on what because I get everything there not just food ie nappies, toiletries, cleaning products (although I buy the on sale items, honest!!) is there an app that would help see what I spend on in Tesco?

You could get a charge card, put all the food shopping on that (and get points) that have no interest if you pay it every month. That would show you exactly how much you are spending at Tesco.

You don’t need an app.
There is no mystery or magic here.
Just Keep your receipts.

Keep your receipts for everything for a month: coffees, takeaways etc.

Have a look, budget.

Do you take out loads of cash and fritter that?

Keep the receipts.

why do you need an app? Look at your receipts.

I think you are procrastinating to avoid looking at your spending.

Do you shop online? That makes it easy to curb your spending. As you fill your basket, the total is shown in the corner. If you feel it's getting a bit expensive, you can remove or swap some items.
I do that as going into the shop, I often find myself picking up nice wine, big bunches of flowers, some ridiculously expensive food etc and end up with an obscene bill. Doesn't happen if I shop online. And actually my weekly online shop from Waitrose generally costs less than making a trip to Lidl and getting tempted.

Yes: app obsession is a way of throwing up your hands helplessly as if you are the hapless victim of your money magically disappearing.

It doesn’t magically disappear: you spend it.

Look at all your spending, incl cash receipts, and decide what is wasteful / unnecessary.

Then make a plan.

E.g make a budget and put the rest into savings as soon as you get paid. Limit yourself to what you have left: what you have budgeted for.

I think the problem is that you can buy just about everything in Tesco and it shows on your statement as food/groceries.

You could be buying clothes, books, household goods, DIY stuff, gardening, gadgets, all manner of stuff and it would all show as groceries.

Only thing I can think of is analysing your receipts each time you go and manually adjusting the spend in a spreadsheet - maybe put the stuff on the belt in order to make it easier - all the food, then any clothes, books or other items.

You could try staying out of Tesco . You say you like Aldi, so get all your groceries there. What are you buying and are there actually things you need and go in for, or do you go for a look for something to do and see if there is anything that catches your eye?

How is the house regarding 'stuff'? Are you drowning under unused impulse purchases and multiple sets of things you don't really need? Could you turn your energies to decluttering and selling of stuff? Once you get into that sort of mindset, you can find you don't want to keep buying more because it fills up your lovely clear spaces.

You don’t need an app but you and dp do need to start worrying down everything you spend. Start by going through 3 months worth of bank statements and writing down your regular fixed outgoings then document everything else that you spend no matter how small.
When you don’t have to think about money it’s easy to fritter it away. Just buying coffee and lunch at work every day could easily set you back £400/month between you.

Yes, it is the ‘little’ coffee and work lunch purchases that add up,

Magazines, nail and hair / waxing? Do either of you spend in hobbies?

Also: look into salary sacrifice for childcare: you could be saving the tax on your childcare spend.

We were (are ) the same.
As PP's have suggested we have opened a joint Monzo account and all the day to day spending goes on it.

You set a budget for how much you want to spend each month in total and you can break it down into further subcategories.
AS SOON AS YOU SPEND ON THE CARD YOU GET A NOTIFICATION- it's a great reminder this is actual money.

We actually transfer over a weekly amount from our main account (where the bills are all paid from) on a Weds so if we have overspent at the weekend we've only got 2 days to wait.

You can add notes to the purchases so I note what the 'extras' are in those 'just popped to Tescos' shops.

It is proving very revealing - and this is our first month of doing it

I don't understand the notifications thing. If you are in the shop, buying the thing, spending the money, how does a ping on your phone make it any more 'real' .

It's also rather obvious that buying lunch and coffee out every day works out expensive if you do it a lot.

The cars are £300 a month to lease, was cheapest way I found of sorting two new cars.
Each, or together? - I'll hazard a guess that it's per car.

Check the bin - if you're over-spending that much and you aren't being squeezed out the door by accumulated stuff you'll be throwing out a lot - wasted food, nearly-new/worn-once clothing, etc.

Check the bills, "Mortgage and associated bills" is too vague to budget against.

• utilities (gas, water, electric)
• communications (landline, mobile phone contracts)
• council tax
• insurances (house, car, life)
• electric/online entertainment (Sky, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc)

Go over your bank statements carefully and identify every single Direct Debit or automatic payment. You need to do this over at least a three month period, and ideally over a full year.

Look at how often you replace items just because they're a couple of years old and you'd like something newer and shinier. If you've got an Apple habit or a premium mobile habit, the contracts and upgrades can add up to a lot.

Have a look at the budget mom on how to track your spending!! You’ll soon see where it goes!!

In YNAB I use split categories (can have half a dozen if you want) for mixed transactions in places like Tesco, so e.g. today I have some shopping coming which is split into 2 categories

1. A DVD in my category Birthdays & Celebrations (I use it for Xmas, Mothers Day etc as well as birthdays) which is for my son on his birthday in a couple of weeks.
2. Food & Household sundries (e.g. toilet roll, bin bags, laundry items, toiletries etc...)

I find home delivery saves me a fortune in the Supermarket.
I use my Clubcard points against the cost of a home delivery pass as they are worth triple for that so it costs me very little (You might well find your points pay for the whole of it as I bet you spend a fair bit more than I do)
It's really hard to impulse buy supermarket food online as you can see exactly how much your shop is going to cost.
Instead of buying ketchup because you think you might be running out, you can look in the cupboard & see you've already got plenty so you don't waste money filling the cupboard with things you don't need.
I order a few days ahead so if I suddenly remember I'm almost out of Cinnamon I can just add it to my next order rather than make another trip to the supermarket which would end up with Cinnamon + at least a tenners worth of random things I saw in there that I don't actually need or really even want that much.

You can do the same without the software of course but it all comes down to you actually doing it.

Once you get into the habit, it becomes easy.

We are the same as you op. I’ve started going through online banking every few days to check and it’s helped curb some spending too.

I don't know why the ping makes it more real - it just does.
I supposr it makes me look at my aggregate spending and note how much money is in the pot right now in real time.

And think twice about how much I want a thing when it's a bit of a frivolous purchase.
Either way it's working for me at the moment.

Get Monzo!

You don’t need an app.
There is no mystery or magic here.
Just Keep your receipts.

^

This. You're a grown woman, own your spending! Only you are responsible for spending your own money. You pick what you spend it on.

We are the same OP. I have absolutely NO IDEA where our money goes. It is so frustrating.

Having said that, a huge chunk is car related. Insurance, breakdown cover, constantly seem to need new tires or something doing to them, paying out still to rent one car.