AIBU to ask how you even start to budget for a month!

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I'm not looking for judgement here. I have found myself in an extreme set of circumstances where I'm taking over the household finances and need to Budget.

I really don't know where to start.
I need all advice you can give me including resources to use.

Thanks xxx

MoneySavingExpert has some brilliant budgeting tips and resources.

This is a really good place to start, their "Money Makeover"

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/money-help/

Add up all the money you get in a month.

Then

1. add up all the regular payments you make in a month (rent/mortgage, council tax, energy, water, childcare, car costs etc).
2. Go through your bank statements and add up how much you spend on food shopping, petrol/fares and any other essentials (school meals, medicines, that sort of thing).

Deduct the the total of 1 & 2 from the total of your income. The amount that's left is your disposable income. That's the max you can afford to spend on non-essentials - clothes, haircuts, going out, presents, holidays, hobbies and so on.
If there's enough, it's a good idea to save some regularly, so you can build up a nest egg. Keep an eye on the running total, either by checking your bank account online regularly or by keeping a note.

If you're spending all your income on bills and essentials, start looking at where you can cut back.

The first step is knowing what you have coming in each month, and your outgoings each month.

Then work out what you have left over for food, saving, days out, emergencies etc.

Any outgoings that you can cancel or reduce - look into to increase your pot.

I use an app called Snoop which lets me link all my cards / bank accounts so I can see how much we're spending where. Once you've achieved that (which can be done with a pen and paper and more patience than I have) you need to work out where you can trim. In our case, we spend far far too much on top up shops...

Pen and paper.

Get all bank statements and bills you can find and write a list of everything you need to pay each month.

This might include

Rent/mortgage
Council Tax
Water rates
Gas
Electricity
Broadband
Phone
Car Tax
Fuel

You might have others on your list.

Then list how much you have coming in each month from wages, benefits etc.

Take away the outgoings from the incomings and what is left over is what you have left for everything else - food, savings, etc.

That's very basic, but it's a good start.

Definitely this. Do you have anyone in real life who can help you?

One option is to use Excel and download a template.

Write down your total income.
Write down all your bills.
Then write down all your expenditure over a month, see where every penny is going.

Then it's easy to do a budget. You know what you've got coming in, you know what has to be paid and you know what's left over.

Don't think only about monthly charges- I have some that go out once a year, so I put some money aside through the year for when it's time for the car MOT/service. I also have a couple of annual memberships, and if you're on a tight budget, they can mess up your budget if you forgot them.

There are other things which will come round irregularly - birthdays (my family has clusters of birthdays at two points in the year, rather than a neat one-a-month regime!) Also Christmas, school uniform. There might be things like swimming lessons paid by the term.

There are things like rent/mortgage, council tax, utility bills which are essential (though you may get better deals by shopping around.) If you have to make cutbacks, it will have to be in other areas, but I know that even then, with everything pared back as much as possible, it can still be difficult to make it all balance- but you have to work out the full picture before you can do that and make decisions.

I do an essentials list with everything that must be paid out. Such as rent, council tax water, electric etc.

A car list - tax, petrol, insurance etc.

A loans/credit card list.

And then figure out all the non essentials such as subscriptions.

Then variable costs such as food, clothing etc.

I usually go through bank statements for last six months to average out the outgoings for variables.

Next work out how much is coming in via wages, any UC or tax credits, maintenance etc.

Hopefully if the incoming is greater than outgoing you have wriggle room for working out putting away savings. If the income part is less look at where reductions can be made in the variable and non essential sections and check you are getting all the help you are able to claim.