Help, how do I budget money

[kellyb85]

Hi everyone.
mum really hoping someone can help me please
me and my husband actually earn quite an ok wage but every month we seem to have nothing left. Luckily we can get by but I feel with the money we are on we should be left with quite a lot to save each month.
we were quite silly with money in our younger years and we do have quite a lot of debt to pay off but with the money we are currently on this shouldn’t be a problem (albeit it will take a couple of years!)
my issue is we are just terrible budgeting! As in I go shopping and do not think about what I am buying really, I kind of just throw things into my basket and don’t think about meals as such. I also generally have quite a lot of food waste each week as well so this is something I am really trying to not do.
i have tried to meal plan for the week but never seem to stick to it!!

my husband leaves all the money side of things to me as he is worse then me when it comes to money!!! He is the sort of person where if he had £10 and went to the shops several times buying £1ish items he is then confused as to where his £10 has gone!!!

is there any good sites or apps that can help me with budgeting correctly

i know I definitely need to meal plan

I was also paying £250 a month extra off my mortgage each month but I have decided to stop that and put that money towards any outstanding debt to pay off quicker, do you think this is a good idea?

how much would you recommend a family of 4’s (2 adults an 11 year old and a toddler) weekly food shop should be? I’m a bugger for nipping to places like home bargains for milk and spending £30 easily on things I do not need!

my children also will eat fruit 1 week so the next week I will buy a variety of fruit for them to not eat it so it goes in the bin!!! Arghhh!

please help me get better with my finances

You could download your last few months spending in a spreadsheet today and analyse it to see what you've been spending your money on.

Try frozen or canned fruit to help avoid waste.

Keep carrots in a tub of water in the fridge to stop them going soft or revive already bendy ones. I learned that on here and it's reduced carrot wastage in this house by a lot.

Look on Moneysaving Expert for budgeting help and the weekly email for ongoing tips.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/budget-planning/

We budget roughly like this. We have our fixed expenses that is paid first. We are fortunate to save 30% of income monthly. 10% goes towards our personal spending. Meal planning is key - do a big bulk shop for the staples. We meal plan and just buy the fresh stuff weekly. Fruit that's not used up can be cut and frozen for smoothies.
Whatever income is left over for the month is transferred to savings. You need to write an itemized list of everything first and work from there.

You've already got great advice on here so I have nothing to add but to say when you need to buy just milk or just bread, leave your purse at home and only take a pound coin with you (or however much it'll cost in near-to-exact change) then you have no choice but to only buy what you need.

Another method if you're not going to stick to keeping a log is work out a sensible weekly amount, take it out in cash, and when it's gone, its gone. Its much easier to just keep tapping that card than see the physical money dissapearing.

But mainly, you know what to do, you just aren't doing it. So... do it!

If you go through your bank statement and list your incomings and outgoings here then people will be able to point out where you're getting ripped off, without that the advice is all just going to be general not specific.

In general, downshift your food shop so switch to Lidl or Aldi if you can or switch to a cheaper range at least at first and then work your way up if you don't like something.

Stop throwing away food! You're just throwing away money, check your fridge and cupboards and make a list of what you actually need before you go shopping. Ask the kids what fruit etc they would like but if they don't eat it then don't ask again, just buy the cheapest bananas and apples. If fruit or veg is going over ripe then make something out of it like banana bread, apple pie, smoothies, ice lollies, orange juice, soup, stew etc and reduce the amount you buy next week. If you don't usually eat the fruit you buy don't buy it, fruit should be food not decoration.

If you do throw something away write down what it was, how many and how much it cost you so that you feel the loss and learn not to overbuy next time, think about whether you would just throw away that same money.

Cut out top up shops as much as possible, bread and milk can be frozen so you don't have to eat stale bread (although I find milk lasts well anyway) everything else should last, but use the sniff test not best before dates.

Buy second hand, I get all my clothes second hand on eBay or Vinted and have for 20 years now, this saves a huge amount and brand new with tags clothes can be bought for 10% of their original cost. I find this much better than charity shopping or car boots. Facebook marketplace is great for household/garden items/toys which are often offered for free.

As in I go shopping and do not think about what I am buying really, I kind of just throw things into my basket and don’t think about meals as such.

So start. Take the amount you want to spend out in cash. Leave your cards at home. Take a list. Add up as you go along and put things back if you have to.

I also use Monzo bank as you can set budget goals on there. So say you only want to spend £200 on groceries or £50 on eating out - it warms you with a notification when you're almost out of the money.

Great thread, following for any new ideas for me.

Some great advice here.
Another tip is to decline shop insurance for things like mobile phones and household appliances (which have to have a year’s manufacturer’s guarantee, anyway, but also sometimes have free extended warranty, too), put the money it would have cost monthly or annually into a separate savings pot instead (definitely keep home/contents insurance going, though!)
In the 25 years we’ve been doing that, we have saved an enormous amount of money that would have otherwise been “lost” to pay for unlikely events (we don’t tend to trash our phones, and rarely get problems with appliances) and we have just been able to replace these, at end of life, from the savings pot).
E.g. 4 mobile phones’ cover would cost £44.00 a month to insure, annual cover for oven, hob, fridge, freezer, washer and dryer would be around £500, so that would be over £1,000 in savings per year.
We’ve never had to claim for phones, and have luckily had 10+ years of use for most kitchen appliances, and at least 6 or 7 years of use for laundry appliances, so this money comes in really handy for buying replacements.

Try paying for everything by cash for a week or two. It makes you think twice about what you're spending and you realised how quickly the odd bits here n there add up.

Cut out top up shops as much as possible, bread and milk can be frozen so you don't have to eat stale bread (although I find milk lasts well anyway) everything else should last, but use the sniff test not best before dates

That's a good tip. As it happens just this morning I finished the milk with a BBE date of 21 June on it. It was still fresh despite me leaving it out in the warm kitchen for the odd hour here and there in the 10 days it's taken me to get through the milk.

Plus the tip about only taking money for bread and milk if you're the type likely to buy a load of other stuff while you're there.

I'm going to 2nd the YNAB suggestion. I've been using it for years and its really helped me get out of debt and keep on top of my money.

Best piece of advice I can give you is to stop using cash. Put everything on your debit card, that way you can track where things are going. Those £2 a day coffees quickly add up throughout the month.

Meal planning got me to a manageable level of stock control in the kitchen. I shop on a Saturday so I have an A4 book. List the days of the week and put a meal beside every one.

Underneath that start listing out, checking your pantry, what you need. So you aren't getting 4 tins of coconut milk when you already have six in there. Then transfer that list to a shopping list app. Add in things for lunches, again checking what you have. If something doesn't get eaten, like apples or yoghurts and get thrown out, don't put them in your trolley or on your list the next time. Now I'm pretty disciplined and if it's not on my list, it won't get bought.

I've an app on my phone that holds all my recipes so I can check quantities of ingredients I need while shopping so I don't buy surplus.

Eggs near the use-by date? Boil them up and make a sandwich filler.
Half a loaf, stick it in the freezer and toast it a slice at a time.
Cut down milk buying and get a few small ones for the freezer - that way when you do run out, leave one overnight to thaw for the breakfast next morning.
Once you know what you are making for the week, you aren't nipping into a shop and adding another £20 in miscellaneous stuff to the bill when you went in for one jar of peanut butter.

Make a lunch and make a coffee to bring. I was terrible for remembering my lovely lunch when I was halfway to work so now I make it the night before, and stick it in the car. My friend has a large tupperware with all her salad bits cut and ready to assemble in the morning. A coffee daily can be expensive so my nespresso machine does one for 40c in my reusable travel mug.

Do you do a lot of online shopping? Mine was creeping up and I didn't really realise. You think "Oh that's only 15" then it adds a tenner delivery, that sort of thing.

Take a look at your subscriptions and cull any that you've not used. Cull any magazines or newspapers that you subscribe or buy as well.

In terms of food waste buying fruit and vegetables either tinned or frozen helps.

You can set up a standing order with your bank to pay into a savings account the day after pay day, this will stop you frittering the money away during the month.

Which has the highest interest rate, the mortgage or the other debt? Always pay off the debt with the highest interest rate first because it means you pay less in the long run.

It's the buying things you don't need that's really hurting your pocket. Write a shopping list and stick to it. If you need to break the habit you could try shopping at your local convenience store for a few weeks. The food will be more expensive, but you could find it cheaper overall because the other stuff isn't available to tempt you.

Try to work out why you are buying all this stuff you don't need and tackle the source of the problem.

Wow some really excellent advice here! I now have my notepad and I am currently working through my bank statements and only on page 1 and I am shocked!!! Think I will be crying by page 2!! But atleast I haven’t got in serious difficulties YET!!!
I currently have 2 bank accounts 1 for bills and 1 for spending but I will definitely look into the other account people have mentioned xx

Small tip- a normal 3 tier steamer cooks food much quicker than boiling and uses one ring instead of three.

Think of savings like a bill, remove them to another account on pay day so the money isn’t available to spend. Write down every penny you spend and then look at where you are wasting money. Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves is an old saying, don’t fritter away on coffees, lunches etc. It might only save a couple of quid but it all adds up.

If your that bad think about going back to cash! Draw cash out every week or month, and assign it all.
So how much for petrol, food, fun, Xmas , bday, holiday, saving, mortgage, bills...and assign each penny on what's actually needed.

Each month between DH and I each penny gets assigned somewhere. So we have a separate bank for holidays and Xmas.
I have two pots for the DC in my personal Bank, in our joint account there is another pot for the DC. There is a bday pot, weekend pot, car fund pot!
Savings....

Food, it's a finely tuned dance. Sometimes at Xmas we still spend too Much but it's been incredible at keeping us steady!

YNAB is amazing! You have to pay for it now but so worth the money you will make it back easy with what you save.

Martin Lewis has a Demotivator calculator on his website that is a great little toy to mess about with.
Say you Chuck a punnet of strawberries out weekly, £2.50 a pop, or £130 per year you might as well have used to wipe your bum.
I used to have a cookies habit worth about £700 per year, just buying them fresh at the train station on the way to work or uni... 😱

Meal planning is a god saver for us! Also use apps like too good to go and olio for treats. Too good to go is brill for things such as greggs, Starbucks- you pay about £3 for £12 worth of food! We also bulk buy meat- so for example we got 4 packs of chicken breast strips and portioned them to make 15 bags of chicken- really does help. Also where do you shop? I know everyone says aldi and Lidl are cheap but we're finding Tesco (with Clubcard) is actually cheaper than anywhere at the min

Ok so I currently chop and change where I shop. It’s either Aldi or Tesco. I was doing a weekly food shop with Tesco click and collect but I found I was just adding all the usual things (even if I didn’t need it) and it was becoming so expensive! I think a shopping list with strict meal planning is what I need to do. It will also help environmentally as my wastage is really quite bad

for everyone saying they have different pots for different things, are we talking actual bank accounts? So you have say 6 different bank accounts? 1 for bills, 1 for holidays 1 for emergencies, 1 for birthdays and so on?

im going to look at munzo and ynab now and see what they are like

thank You everyone 😁 I really do appreciate all this. I cannot believe how I have let things get this way my bank statements are a very upsetting read and a big shock to the system but onwards and upwards xxx

I have a spread sheet with the bills and all the amounts.

It then calculates the cost so we both know what to put in the joint.

In regards to your mortgage, it's with seeing how long is left on your current term as if it's due for renewal then interest rates are going up Right now