To want to know how do you organise your household budget?

[shivawn]

I really love setting a budget and I change up how I do it every so often! I'd love to hear how other households do it and see if I can get any new ideas! 💡

Our current system is working really well for my husband and I, we have a few different accounts with different categories assigned to them and transfer money to each account once a week.

We have a main joint bank account that we both get paid in to and all monthly fixed bills and mortgage come out of this, these total 1050 a month.

We each have our own Monese accounts that we transfer 100 each in to every Thursday for personal spends. My husband always does the grocery shopping so he also transfers an extra 100 a week in to his Monese account to cover this.

We also have a Revolut account for shared household stuff, repairs, socialising and other miscellaneous expenses. I transfer 250 a week into this. This account funds our date nights, extra groceries, we can both use it if we run out of personal money etc. We try not to spend everything in this account every week so money will roll over and build up over time but then an expensive repair or big social event will inevitably wipe it out.

At the end of every month, I transfer an extra 200 to our Revolut account and put it straight in to a Vault labelled Yearly Expenses. This is to cover things like car insurance and tax, campervan insurance and tax, house insurance, professional fees....any big expenses that only pop up once a year.

And then finally, at the end of every month I transfer whats left in our main account into savings. This should be our wages minus bills, mortgage and the 550 I transfer out every week and it usually is.

We use Google pay on our phones to pay for everything and we both have all the cards to every account on there, with our own Monese accounts set to default, but we can switch between any of them as needed!

Pre-pandemic we used to always operate in cash so had to adjust when cash suddenly became unpopular overnight! Having the different accounts and vaults really helps us keep things organising so we know what money is for what.

What way do you do yours?

Oh and I have a spreadsheet of outgoings/annual estimates spending/actual spending which helps me see where my money is going.

I'm a single parent. I transfer a set amount to savings accounts every payday, one savings account for me and one savings account for DS. Then I buy whatever I want with the rest. I don't budget for anything in particular.

We earn roughly the same, we have our own bank accounts and a joint one. We both put half the bill money into the joint one every month and an extra £50. Our bills like car insurance ect are seperate and we pay our own ones from our own accounts. I do 4 hello fresh meals a week and dh does mine and his lunch and covers the other 3 nights. I do a couple of big shops a month and he does the top up shops.

Dh pays for more treats and meals out than me so it works out fair enough.

I think you could set up a business sorting this for other people OP!

That sounds really complicated!

We have the same amount of money each month to spend as we wish on ourselves. Everything else is split between three joint accounts - one for bills, one for long term savings and one for spare money for the month (to cover petrol/birthday presents/takeaways/days out). At the end of the month, any surplus from the spare money account or our own accounts is transferred into the long term savings account. We use the long term savings to pay for Christmas, holidays etc.

One joint account that both salaries go into. All bills and expenditure comes out of this. A set figure for joint savings automatically transfers on 1st of month, I look at balance and add extra to savings, amount could differ depending on spending. That's it.

I think I would find lots of smaller pots annoying tbh, I prefer to have the full overview and spend as little time on it as possible

Wages into joint account on 20th leave enough to cover monthly DDs which all leave on 28th+ £50 buffer if we need cash out, everything else goes straight into savings.

All spending on joint credit card paid in full along with monthly DDs. We generally don't spend big on this.

That sounds like a lot of work that I couldn't be bothered with.

We get paid into our personal accounts. Transfer the same amount into the joint to cover all bills and shopping. We put in more than we need to cover it all so we always have plenty in there - usually an extra month or so.

The rest of our pay is ours to spend as we wish, or not, as the case is currently.

It sounds organised but complex. For us no joint account, I get paid slightly more, DP transfers a set amount to me, I pay all bills and for more shopping but we just figure out other things as we go along. We've never argued about money.

Thanks for all the replies! Lol at all the people saying its super complicated, when I read it back it does seem like a lot of effort! It actually isn't to me though, I just transfer 100 to the Monese and 250 to the Revolut every Thursday and my husband transfers his own. I find it easier to manage weekly! Things were pretty much the same pre-covid except we'd take out 550 cash and id take 100, he'd take 200 and we'd put 250 in a drawer to use as needed. Its the just the different accounts that makes it seem complex now but we don't use cash anymore! Its interesting to hear peoples perspectives!

We don't have spreadsheets or track spends anything like that, I feel like that is a whole extra level of organisation! Once it came from the right pot we don't worry about what specifically it got spent on! To me our system is actually quite relaxed 😅.

You have £400 each a month for spending money?

Sorry its € not £, I should have said. We're living in Ireland now because DH is from here. I do think the cost of living is a bit higher here. We're double income no kids at the moment but there'll be a new baby arriving in less than 6 months so I'm sure we'll cut back!

That all sounds like far too much work

We have separate accounts. DH earns more than me, so he pays the majority of household bills (mortgage, council tax and utilities), I pay the rest (internet, pet insurance, groceries) - this is all proportionate to our incomes. We also save around £300 a month between us in individual accounts.

Out of our individual "leftovers" we each pay for our phone bills, car tax, insurance and fuel. Anything left is free money - that goes on things like takeaways, clothes, bike related stuff (him), scented candles and wax melts (me) and things like coffee with my mum, lunches out with friends etc.

It works fine for us.

Sounds way to complicated. I was losing concentration before I finished reading your description. For us everything goes into the joint account and we have monthly direct debit which goes into our own individual account for your personal spending money.

Goodness me. What a palaver! I pay for groceries and petrol. My husband pays for everything else.

Paid on 25, I save a minimum quarter of net income straight away. Then rent and bills on direct debit come out. From what remains it depends. Usually I aim to save another quarter income (so half income overall) but it depends on the month, what's due.

I have a very geeky spreadsheet and track everything, around 50 categories. This way after a year I can see what I've spent pretty category overall.

I'm a lone parent so don't have to negotiate this with anyone, and very frugal.

My husband works, I don't, so when he gets paid I refer to my spreadsheet and transfer enough to cover the monthly bills that come out of my account plus my monthly food budget. We each have £200 a month to ourselves, and the rest is put in a separate 'fun money's account. We each have Plum and Moneybox accounts which takes savings automatically.

We do similar in that we use different accounts for different bills/payments/personal spending/saving . However we only shift money monthly the day that we get paid. I could not be arsed with all that money shifting on a weekly basis.
I also keep an excel sheet which I look at and update monthly to ensure we know exactly where all our money is going.

This system works well for us.

I don’t work , husband does , we have one joint current account where all the money goes . At the start of the month I transfer various amounts into various savings accounts and I spend from what’s left . I couldn’t be doing with having set amounts for groceries / personal spending etc .

We each have a personal account for our salary. Joint account for bills that we pay into proportionately. I also pay into mine, dd and joint short term savings. DH pays into his own and children's accounts (I have 2 stepchildren). We pay monthly from the bills account to short term account for bills we pay yearly. We have a little flexibility in joint account but not much as DH would spend it! Recently opened a longer term joint savings for building up to cover bills in the event of unemployment.
Everything else we pay from our own accounts, or if it's a joint cost (e.g if we decide to make a bigger purchase for the house) we'll share the cost. Works quite well for us as DH a spender and me a saver. He runs out of cash it's his problem not mine.

I have a "kids" account which is actually my old current account. My child benefit goes in there and kid related costs such as occasional school dinners (mostly pack ups) Cubs and swimming lessons come out of it. Then I have my main account that all other income comes into. I have a bills account that all bills come out of and a savings account. A fixed amount is transferred monthly from my current account to these and also a small sum to each DC's account to build savings. The bills are averaged so I pay more or less in than out of that account some months. The rest in the current account is then mine for shopping and discretionary spending. I'm single so no one else to factor in. When I was married ex had a similar system and we each paid half the bills account (which was then joint) and took it in turns to pay for shopping, days out etc. It worked but I imagine in couples with a big difference in earnings it could be more difficult.

That does sound complicated!
But whatever works for you.

If you wanted to keep it simple I would keep your own individual Accounts and have 1 joint Account.
Transfer enough from each individual account to the joint account and everything from the joint account.

If you wanted to save money (as you mentioned you did an extra top-up shop) - you could use a Magneplan - a handy magnetic meal planner to help cut out that extra shop @magne.plan

Good luck - you sound pretty responsible with money!

• pay everything from the joint account!

Most things come out of one central account. Transfer money each month for holidays and Christmas.

Feels like you’ve got a good handle on your spends tbh - I’m a bit like you in that I like to manually transfer my money in and out, although I definitely don’t have as much available as you!

I did have a Chip account until recently - it looks at your bank account and transfers a bit out every so often. However they started charging me for the privilege and with 0% interest it was just not worth the convenience tbh.

I always had a joint account when I was married, savings all in my name (I'm a basic rate tax payer, him higher) worked just fine, no need for separate personal spend accounts when you trust each other. I have separate finances now with dp because we are independent income wise, he pays the bills as he earns more but I earn sufficient to buy whatever I want plus groceries, eating out, treating my kids, my family gifts etc. He's just paid for our holiday