How to set a budget

[DailyEnergyCrisis]

I’m hoping to spend less on extras this year which I guess is mainly clothes I don’t need, fancier food than we need, things the kids don’t really need. What’s the best/easiest way to set a budget and track spend? Or do I need to go cold turkey and only buy food and essential kids clothes.

I use a spreadsheet, I check my 'everyday' banking every morning. Everything goes on that spreadsheet.

I use standing orders rather than direct debits as it is easy to move the payment by a day or two.

I have several other accounts with various degrees of access, you have to think about spending when it involves giving notice to withdraw money.

I created my own Excel spreadsheet years ago. Lists all my monthly income and expenditure for the year ahead.

For each current month column I have the projected expenditure in a column in red on the right, with everything I can think of listed (I.e Car insurance, MOT)

Then twice a week or so I go online and fill in the expenditure from bank account until the spreadsheet bank balance matches the actual balance to the penny.

Mind you, not everyone knows the equations to put into cells to add up or deduct column figures. If anyone wants to know these give me a shout.

Good luck OP I reckon it'll be a gamechanger for you.

if you want to set a budget

then from your expenses you can't change the mortgage, utilities or council tax

but you can change the sky, mobile phone, internet, grocery shopping so those are the items you can budget.

Start by by reducing the budget for your food shopping. Look at buying an 8th meal for the week of store cupboard items for the last week of the month to make.

The takeaway foods bills is something you can also reduce, use fake takeaway meals instead. Or simple fish from the freezer department with oven chips for fish and chips meal, pizza the same as its easy to cook in the oven and add garlic bread etc as an alternative to a take away.

budget for £20 less per week for the groceries

try telephoning sky, mobile provider to reduce the bill, see whether it works. Look at sim only deals that are far cheaper, fire sticks that are one purchase and get rid of sky for example and not have £150 on phones and tv package

stop spending on things you don't actually need, but set yourself a small sundries amount.

'If you're trying to save money, the best way to do it is not to spend any. That means questioning yourself every time you buy anything as to whether your purchase is essential, whether you will get value out of it and whether you can achieve the same result more quickly.'

Yes, I totally agree and YNAB allows me to make informed decisions instantly and easily, which is the joy of it.

Another vote for YNAB. It's changed everything financially for me. I've gone from slightly overspending each month with CC debt, to no debt and healthy savings.

Every time I get a bill - this month car & house insurance for example - I have ££ ready to pay it. No stress, no CC needed. I have ££ for this summers holiday already. And when Christmas or birthdays come around the ££ is there waiting for me to spend it.

YNAB introduced a mortgage calculation tool about a year ago that allowed me to do the sums around remortgaging. I ran all the numbers and paid the bank to end fix early & remortgaged at super low rate. My fix was due to end this month. This has literally save me thousands of pounds & provided peace of mind for 5 years. It's also helping me overpay wherever possible & see the results of those overpayments