Budgeting - how!

[HarkTheHeraldAngels]

Friendly replies only please! I really don't want arguing or boasting over how much everyone spends on Christmas presents or Christmas in general but...

How do you budget for Christmas? Do you look at what you take home after bills etc and work it out from there or do you pick a number you feel is realistic and save/look for bargains under that.

I usually budget for gifts but never sit down and work out what I can spend on everything else but this year it is becoming a necessity that this is done. I'm talking the food, decorations, days out etc.

Thank you!

The freezer can be very useful for budgeting too - buy the things that are on special through the autumn (chicken wings at Halloween, mince for family favourite dinners at back to school time, cooking apples at harvest time etc) or that you can find and freeze like blackberries for crumbles.

Is it purely a Christmas budget?

I started mine 5 years ago and it started off in the January. I worked out what we had spent on DS, what I had spent on DH, family and friends presents

Then I wrote a food shopping list and the price each item was

Then the days out and what they cost

I then added each section up and divided by 10 months and put that away each month. I do this now every year and save that amount each month so it becomes a sinking fund. I review it each January and amend goals if needed. If anything isn't spent, it stays in the Christmas pot. I still put the amount away in November and December too ready for the following year.

My present shopping is always done by November, gift vouchers I get on the first weekend in December. The week between Christmas and new year and first week of January I get wrapping paper and cards in the sale for the following year.

About 10 years ago, Clintons made a mistake (well I think it was) in their sale and I've still not finished off the wrapping paper I got in that sale. They had all wrapping paper rolls at 75% off. The rolls were also in on the buy 2 get 1 free and another offer if you bought 6 rolls, you got 20% off and all the offers were put onto one purchase. It worked out about £1.60 for 6 rolls so I ended up getting 24 rolls for less than a tenner so it's worth checking out those offers to save money.

I do this with my general budget too and have 10 savings pots within my bank that each gain interest. I sweep the interest gained into my long term savings which gets transferred yearly into a different account that I can't see

I'm still here everyone. I'm so overwhelmed with life just now I'm struggling to keep up with anything.

THANK YOU for so many responses and I'm hoping the thread is helping others. I'm going back to page 2 (!) to note down everything else and my aim is to do what I can this year but do a lot of these things going forward for next year.

@@YellowphantGrey it started as a question purely for Christmas but after trying to reevaluate my life admin I'm wanting to overhaul how I think for everything finance!

On another note - can anyone recommend a way to electronically collect money for a 40th? I was looking up Collectiv but got a bit stressed when some reviews weren't good.

A PP has mentioned digital envelopes and I'm going to look into this - is there a really simple way of explaining this to me if anyone has time please?

Thanks again ❤️

@HarkTheHeraldAngels I have a separate instant access savings account with my bank that I use to collect money (for hen parties, birthdays etc). I can see it on my app but it's otherwise never used.

Also thank you for starting this thread- I've been putting off an admin overhaul and it's given me the push to sort it out!

@HarkTheHeraldAngels Hope you are feeling okay, I love this time of year but with 3 children growing up and the COL crisis, it is being a bit overshadowed by financial worries and planning!

For your group gift, my work team used this for some colleagues who were leaving as we all WFH and are dotted around the UK, it was really good as everyone can pay whatever they want and it pools it into an Amazon voucher (and there may be more options for vouchers, I'm not sure?), and it has lots of nice virtual card and signing options:Group Leaving Cards - Greeting Cards for the Office | Group Ecards

In terms of budgeting for Christmas, years ago when I was on mat leave and didn't have very much, I was told by someone about credit unions. I was able to get a child benefit loan and now just have this rolling each year. It's quite low interest and I would rather save myself, but I'm not great at saving as there always seems to be a need to spend the money, however this way it's just put away. My CU also has mandatory savings, so while you are paying off the loan, you are building up a little pot of money to withdraw at the end. It costs me half my weekly child benefit (around £25pw) and I withdraw it late November/early December.

Depending if I have needed to take it out for any emergency reasons, I typically draw down between £600 - £800, which covers the huge majority of my children's gift budget. My children don't really have any extended family so the pressure is shouldered by us, as they won't really get many presents from anyone but us.

Each month we also have a proportion of income that is "disposable", it's actually usually used for things like hair cuts, clothes or necessary items, but we will plan and be careful and can allocate this to other months so in November and December, we can allocate around £350 per month to Christmas spending.

Equally as important is planning - gifts are planned really carefully and spend months working on a spreadsheet planning what I want my children to have. I usually make a list of everything I want them to have, cost it out, allocate what I can to the limited amount of relative's buying for the kids, and then trim/review. I also leave a part of the budget solely for requests if any come through. Sometimes I am lucky in that I don't need to trim anything at all, and sometimes I make impulsive extra purchases, but I largely try and stay within budget.

Also added to the spreadsheet is food costs and anything else needed - e.g. new decorations.

Ultimately, I think the most important thing is to remember that Christmas is a really special and magical time of year, especially for children, and over stretching ourselves is truly not necessary to have an amazing time.

@SilverDoe Lovely post, and really helpful 😃

It started as a question purely for Christmas but after trying to reevaluate my life admin I'm wanting to overhaul how I think for everything finance

I found the first year of doing it for all my finances hard as I effectively had double everything to pay to get into the right place.

Write down all your outgoings. Every single one, and how much they are.

Then Write down what you pay (whether you pay it all or it's split with someone else)

Write down all your income.

Take away the outgoings from the income and that's what you have left. Divide that by the weeks till your next pay and that's what you've got to spend.

That's a very basic thing to get started.

I then started sinking funds. I use Chase bank for mine. You can have a current account plus 10 savings accounts. My 10 savings accounts are

Holidays, Christmas, birthdays, Car, hygiene (haircuts, dentist, waxing)

Then our joint account, my savings and my pension. With my pension, it's only in this account because I got a fixed interest rate of 5.1% for 12 months so I save into this and will transfer it to my Lisa when the interest expires and close it down and savings for DS.

For Christmas and birthdays, work out your budget per person, say it's £50 and that comes to £200, I would then divide the 200 by ten, pay that into the relevant sinking fund, ready for the following year, while also spending it for this year. Then next year, your only paying it out once because you've saved your first year already.

Car fund is to cover my insurance, mot, service and tax. I put £100 a month into this and pay my insurance in one payment each year. Again I worked out mot, service, road tax and insurance for 12 months, divided by 11 and save this. Any spare just stays in there, same with all accounts.

Once you've got your sinking fund outgoings wrote down, I then add these to outgoings, take it away and whatever is left, is what I have to spend on anything fun or non essential.

It soon becomes habit. On payday, I move all the money to the chase account that needs transferring over, pay any bills that aren't direct debit then see what's left. I then minus the direct debits, leave that in the account then transfer my spending money to my chase current which I use daily for spending. They also have round ups which you can start and pause at anytime, it rounds to nearest pound and moves it to a seperete pot then pays it back to you with interest.

I then spend weekly so say for example I've got £50 a week till payday. If I spend more, I've got less the next week. The day before payday I sweep whatever is left in there to my savings as an extra bonus and start again with a zero balance.

I hope that makes sense!