Need A Budget (YNAB) www.youneedabudget.com/download is a budgeting software. They give a 34 day trial, then the software either costs $60 from YNAB directly, or £30 via Steam.
You have a desktop software which you enter your transactions from your bank accounts into and compile a budget. You only assign money to budget categories as it comes into your account, so that you are never overspending.
There are also apps for iphone/pad and android. These allow you to enter transactions as you make them, say at the shops.
The idea is that you follow 4 rules:
- Give every dollar (pound) a job. This means that when money comes into your account, you assign it to the categories in your budget.
Say you have £100 come into your account. You might assign £80 for food and £20 for your electricity bill.
- Save for a rainy day. This means that you should be looking ahead for big bills or non-monthly bills and setting money aside to cover them when they come.
Say you pay £300 for car insurance annually. You might decide to allocate £25 per month towards the insurance, so that when the bill comes you have the £300 saved and don't have to suddenly find £300 out of one set wages.
- Roll with the punches. This means that if you overspend on groceries, for example, you adjust another category to compensate, rather than just accepting that you've overspent.
- Live on last month's income. This is a bit aspirational at first, but the idea is that over time you build up enough reserves in your account to have a whole month's income in hand, so that you use the income from September to pay October's bills, rather than using the income from September to pay of the month before.
This means that if there is a delay in getting paid, or an unexpected big bill, you have a buffer so don't have to worry about getting into debt.
It's a bit confusing for me to start with, because we have 6 different sources of income - one monthly, two 4-weekly, 3 weekly. So there is a bit of juggling to do.