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?

Seperate accounts. I pay a chunk of stuff and he pays a chunk of stuff in proportion of our seperate incomes. We have our own personal spends. I don't have online banking and from the sounds of it I'd prefer it that way reading all that OP

Glad you have a system that works for you to though.

We keep it really simple. Both get paid into our own current accounts. Each transfer equal money into a joint account to cover bills, mortgage and childcare (plus a little extra for a buffer in case bills go up). I earn more than DH so the difference in what we each have left, I take out and put into savings (£1000 for our savings, £100 for DDs savings). Whatever we both have left is then ours to do as we please with. Any big purchases like holidays we tend to split 50:50.

We have separate accounts. Husband’s is a business account as he is self employed. He pays all the bills quarterly and the rates and insurances annually. We pay car insurances and tax annually.
I pay for all the food, clothes etc for the children, Christmas gifts, birthday etc.
I haven’t a clue how much our bills are tbh but we are extremely sensible with money and earn more than we spend.
Husband doesn’t really spend money tbh.

£550 every week for non essentials seems a LOT to me, we can't really comment on your budget without knowing your income and long term plans for your money

That said

Savings - have you at least 3 months worth of savings for if your income stream disappears?

You seem to be spending much more on non essentials than you are putting into savings.

Have you ever done a statement of affairs for yourselves? A comprehensive list of all your income and outgoings per calendar month to get an overview of what share of your income is going where?

When I was married it was all joint accounts, worked at the time but as soon as we split ex emptied them leaving me stuffed!

So I would caution anyone but especially women and even more especially Sahm against doing that based on my own experience.

I have now a current account, which is my main account I use, a short term savings account where I put what I'm aiming to save but is instant access for emergencies and a longer term savings account for long term savings that I try not to touch and flashes up big reminders if I try and access it so I think twice about using it if I don't really need to.

You haven't really described managing a budget you've described where you put your income.

Managing a budget includes to my mind such things as:

Shopping around regularly for the best deals - I'm in the MSE energy and credit clubs which mean I get updates on when best to make switches, alerts to potential upcoming issues and I've been able to build my credit rating to "excellent" following a time when I was really struggling.

I try to be a savvy consumer, look for deals and bargains even within regular grocery shopping (there are quite a few items I'll only buy when they're on offer and if they're long shelf life/non food items then I'll stock up while they're on offer. Eg I've just bought 8 tins of beans as they're back on the 4 for offer at Tesco who I shop with - that'll last me approx 3+ months by which time they'll be back on offer again. I like fairy green liquid but never buy at full price). Larger purchases I'll research, find and use cash back, money off codes/vouchers and/or wherever possible acquiring loyalty points which can be applied to future purchases. I have loyalty cards/membership for all retailers I buy from even if infrequently.

Regularly checking I'm on the best deal/contract for energy, phone, broadband etc

No point putting it in a different account until it’s a bigger pot as the interest would be tiny. however "tiny" the interest still better surely in your benefit than the banks?

I have a spreadsheet which I do in rather an odd way. This is because I am on benefits and so my income comes in at odd intervals and not all at once. So I have a weekly broken down 4 week calendar I work to, I work out a 6 monthly forecast in weekly columns, labelled by date and by which week in my 4 week month it is. This allows me to work out the best dates to have the direct debits I can alter come out working around the direct debits I can't change eg tv licence. I account for all expenditure across the whole year, this is mainly because dds birthday is shortly after Christmas and the first few years I came unstuck so I realised I needed to be much more organised for this.

So as a single mum I split my year into 2 savings wise - jan-Jun what I saved then was for extra expenditure during the summer holidays (dd was also on fsm so I had to account for that at this time, plus it was helpful to have a little money available for extra transport, cheap entertainment, snacks and drinks while out and about) jul-Dec savings were for Xmas and dds birthday.

I also don't buy clothes, shoes, make up very often for myself but I still set money aside for these monthly (4 week month) into the short term savings account so that when I do need to get them the money is there.

@VettiyaIruken I'm intrigued by your approach I must admit as I often have slight discrepancies between planned and actual spending which I'd like an overview of. It's mostly in my favour the discrepancy I tend to overestimate how much I'll spend out of caution. I have just purchased a new laptop and later today am planning to create my spreadsheet on it at the moment I'm using the one on my phone but with a larger screen it would be nice to use your way of laying it out

I also have a credit card which I rarely use, and always pay off in full, but has enabled me to improve my credit rating and is useful for emergencies and larger purchases to provide protection.

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

Then I would strongly recommend you set up a spreadsheet and do an SOA soon. Presumably your income is going to drop at least temporarily and then either that will remain the case or you'll be spending out for childcare or a combination of both. If you're going to be using childcare have you checked how much that will be?

If you don't know where your excess spending is you won't know where you can cut back. In addition certain cut backs may have time constraints eg phone contracts, switching suppliers may need to be done on certain dates which may well be in the next few months before baby arrives.

Better to get a handle on this now than when you're also dealing with sleep deprivation, a screaming baby, recovering from birth and possibly establishing breastfeeding.

Much easier to do now.

Ugh hate when the bold gets lost!

No point putting it in a different account until it’s a bigger pot as the interest would be tiny.

however "tiny" the interest still better surely in your benefit than the banks?

I couldn't be bothered with moving money every week and so many different accounts, but if it works for you then why not.

We save £100 into each of the children's accounts each month and I save £100 a month into a separate personal account, they all go out automatically. I use the separate account to pay my car tax, car insurance, professional insurance etc all of which adds up to just over £1000 each year, and I like to know that money is sitting there for when those bills come in.

Everything else is just paid out of the joint account. And whatever is left at the end of the month is saved in premium bonds or used to top up the tax free childcare account. We tend to keep 3 or 4 months of childcare fees in the tax free childcare account and put a lump sum on every few months.

We have a joint account and everything goes in and out of that. We have separate ISAs and pension funds (obviously) but the same amount of money goes into them and those investments have the same value (give or take). When I was on maternity leaves my husband paid the full allowance amount into my ISA so I wasn’t disadvantaged.

Joint account where both of our wages are paid and separate ‘pocket money’ accounts we are free to spend however we wish. I end to buy things monthly/often, DH quarterly or six monthly blowouts. This is £100 each a month. Savings for yearly items like cat servicing, Christmas get shoved off to savings. Smaller yearly costs luckily coincide with council tax break so the same budgeted money goes to house insurance etc. Family stuff like holidays come out of joint savings.

We have a budgeting spreadsheet where we have what expenses are due in each week ie week 1 mortgage, council tax, water, food then week 2 phone bills, food, car payment etc so we can tot up how much we need until the end of the month and check against our bank balance.

We have a joint account for bills and then pretty much all other spending goes on a joint credit card. I pay the whole card off each month and sweep anything left into savings.

I also track all spending on YNAB budgeting app but that’s more for my own gratification and interest. It doesn’t massively affect my spending because if I exhaust the nominal “clothes” pot I just move more in if I want to. I’ve never been a big spender though really.

We both get paid into our joint account, then a set amount is instantly transferred to savings/ISAs etc.
All direct debits come out of the joint account and we both spend out of it as and when.
We chat to each other if there’s a big expense coming or we want to spend more/less on something.
All relatively simple but it requires two people who don’t care who earns or spends what.

Vaguely similar but on a monthly basis rather than weekly. and potentially less content marketing

We have our own accounts which wages get paid into. Then we put half each into the joint account for household expense/kids/lunches/shopping etc.

my pension goes in at the end of the month, his on the first, then most of the bills come out either the last or first of the month. so for 48 hours we sit tight and do very little but watch on line (as some of the bills are variable electric/heat/city utilities).
anything over 3000 goes into savings. that gives us 100 a day. i'm strict and we stick to it. be it fuel for the car or dog food no matter what the daily limit is the daily limit.
should we underspend on the daily limit, the pennies go onto the mortgage. YUP i will happily transfer penny change onto the mortgage. by the end of the month it can be a significant chunk.
i check the bank accounts multiple times a day and every morning make sure we start out with an even 100 to spend.
we each have a good discretionary amount available monthly for gifts and personal spending AGAIN money not spent at the end of the month goes onto the mortgage or savings. no joke i move pennies from one account to another.

@Annietheacrobat if your DP pays the mortgage and you pay everything else, and you aren't married, doesn't that mean he can just take the house if you split?

Blimey op, your system sounds like a lot of hard work plus that's a lot of spending money each per month!
Both our wages get paid into our joint account in payday. I transfer out some savings to our general account, around £400ish while I'm on mat leave, more like £700ish when I'm working, then £100 each to more specific pots, and an amount to the children's premium bonds. Often I make a smallish payday overpayment to the mortgage.
We don't bother with personal spends to our own accounts. We're pretty low spend as with two small children we don't tend to go out. Our tastes are low key and we're similar in that respect.
I'd love to budget more seriously and throw loads at the mortgage/savings, but DH is completely useless at sticking to one so there's no point.

@fallfallfall

my pension goes in at the end of the month, his on the first, then most of the bills come out either the last or first of the month. so for 48 hours we sit tight and do very little but watch on line (as some of the bills are variable electric/heat/city utilities). anything over 3000 goes into savings. that gives us 100 a day. i'm strict and we stick to it. be it fuel for the car or dog food no matter what the daily limit is the daily limit. should we underspend on the daily limit, the pennies go onto the mortgage. YUP i will happily transfer penny change onto the mortgage. by the end of the month it can be a significant chunk. i check the bank accounts multiple times a day and every morning make sure we start out with an even 100 to spend. we each have a good discretionary amount available monthly for gifts and personal spending AGAIN money not spent at the end of the month goes onto the mortgage or savings. no joke i move pennies from one account to another.

Do you ever unclench? You both sit tight for 48 hours, watching constantly online?

Sounds like a fun existence.

Bill account that all money goes into. Then direct debits for bills, loads of online saver accounts with SO from main account food, petrol, spending, savings, clothes, school costs (equipment and uniform), car costs, insurances, birthday, Christmas, childcare, music lesson, hobbies

Also have save the chnage set up

And spreadsheet with all detailed

How complicated! We have personal accounts that our salaries go into and we transfer from there into the joint account. Earn roughly the same. Each month, all bills go out on the first/second. We put some into savings (long term), some into savings for yearly bills (car ins/house ins/car tax/TV license) and some into savings for the DC. What’s left is for groceries and incidentals, clothes etc. Usually around £1000/month but we can cut that right back if we need to save more at any point. I couldn’t be doing with all the transfer this/transfer that back malarkey!

Forgot to say, also all accounted for on a spreadsheet that I update every 3 months or so, depending on the DC’s activities, changes in what we do, priorities etc.

Myself and my partner have separate accounts, he pays the rent and I pay the bills, then most of our weekly shop he will pay
For my accounts I have three, savings and then one for bills and one for spending. I have a spreadsheet for all the bills and make sure that I have enough in my bills account to cover that and then transfer a set amount to my spending account and that's what I use for any day to day personal spending.

We each get paid to our personal accounts; we keep equal amounts as play money and the rest goes to a joint account.

All bills, groceries, DCs' expenditure and a set amount of savings come out of the joint account.

Anything left in the joint account at the end of the month is automatically transferred to the savings account.

I personally save from my monthly play money as well. Just in case

Joint ac here. All debits from that. Not into he owes me x she owes me x. Big purchases would discuss. Seperate savings pays her orthodontics bill. Havent had hair waxing done as they closed. I use visa for those! When I temped both wages in joint ac

Joint account - standing orders for household bills, savings, pension contributions, DS's Uni allowance etc ... spend what's left ... neither of us is 'allocated' personal spends but we are both pretty frugal and trust each other not to go overdrawn. We don't have a 'set' budget for food but DH keeps a spreadsheet so we can see how the money is spent. Has worked for over 30 years, never gone overdrawn or had debts, mortgage paid off in our 40s .... so I wouldn't be bothered to change our system.