Budgeting is not much fun, how to be motivated?

[pisspants]

Hi there.
I have been just about managing for a long time but always end up down to the last penny or turning to using credit cards. I have what should really be enough left over each month before starting to include things like large annual expenses like car insurance, holidays, Christmas and birthdays, clothes etc. I also have no savings and know I really need to build up some kind of a buffer in case something breaks etc.
So I have come up with a budget but it leaves hardly anything at all left over. So now I realise how tight things really are. I see how important it is to put a bit away each month to cover various costs but I know I'll struggle seeing the money is there and keeping the pot to one side for its allocated use.
Has anyone else been in this situation before and managed to turn around their way of dealing with money? i would love to get some tips if possible

Pay yourself first. Set up a standing order into a regular saver for two days after payday.
You could also set up a stocks and shares ISA, mine is tiny, £30 a month, had it for about 3-4 years and just received a statement, I have £1500 in it now!
It’s a myth that you have to have thousands disposable to invest/save. We all started with pennies and built up.
Regarding the budget, do a statement of affairs, you’ll find one online. For illustration, say you earn £2000. Mortgage is £500, bills £500. Food £300. Savings £350. It would leave you £350 for whatever.

What I do, I factor everything in bills. Gas, council, internet, mobile phone, insurances, petrol, parking at work etc. Your bank statement should help you with finding all the expenses.
I have one bank account I get paid into.
From there, stuff like bills come out via standing order into a natwest account, you get cashback on bills.
Another chunk goes to savings, then another one for mortgage.

One of the biggest savings you can make is by overpaying the mortgage.
HTH

Oh, and have an account/card, just for spending money. As in for food, going out etc.

Check out “the budget mom” on instagram or YouTube she has a great budgeting method!!

Can I join you pisspants? My finance is a mess. Always scrabbling as soon as the car needs servicing or that surprise event 'Christmas' . It happens every year so I've no excuse for not having a pot ready. Great advice from 8 already thank you!

The motivation is seeing your savings build. Around 2 years ago we went though a big rough patch with money when my Dh wasn't paid on a contract. I started a new job and we just about covered the essentials. However I always saw savings as a bill and put 350 per month aside. This covered annual expenses like mot and car repairs, a new washing machine when it broke, xmas birthdays and a small cheap holiday. Now we have a bit ore money as we earn a little more and haven't got debts.

Write down every birthday and Xmas present you have to buy, and cut back where you can as in buy for less people. Include in this list cost for new uniform, shoes, a rough estimate for a holiday and school trips. Add into the list car repairs and insurances. Devise the total by 12 months and this is the figure you must save each month. As the year goes by I can come in under budget by picking up sale presents and uniform etc. I pack these away and keep a list on my phone of what I've bought. For example I bought my girls 3 winter coats for 6 pounds each in the spring sale, where as I had budgeted 20 per coat. By having the money aside you can just buy as you see things and tick off as you go.

Really recommend money saving expert website. We went through a very tough few years and that site helped enormously.

I also used a tracking app on my phone, so everything got tracked against my account. I used Toshl. So every coffee etc....I found it motivating seeing savings grow from small behaviour changes.

Go through your bank account and cancel anything you don’t use.

No it's not fun when things are tight. Sounds like you are starting to go down the right path by realising that you need to put money away for insurance, white goods replacement etc before spending on discretionary items, but you could have a go at the Moneysavingexpert money makeover which is a systematic budgeting tool that aims to help you put together a comprehensive budget and signposts to extra help where relevant.

Also gives tips for gaining extra income and reducing expenses - eg do you already use cashback sites, or do things like switch your bank account for introductory bonuses? Combine this with reducing all your basic expenses and the outcome is that you can increase your truely disposable income significantly.

Good luck!

You keep motivated because you have a goal.
What can be off putting is feeling like you’re restricted and life is boring. To avoid that, get out as much as you can and do as much free and really cheap stuff as you can. Still meet with friends and family but do things that don’t cost much. Let them know money is right.
Use vouchers, offers, meal deals etc when you do fancy a treat. Moneysavingexpert usually have info on promotions.

Once you get into the swing of it budgeting is interesting . You see your money differently and it becomes less scary. I was pants with money years ago and wouldn't look at bank statements. Now I check it on my app daily. I save a nominal amount I can afford on pay day and then anything left the day before next pay day gets saved too.
It's really good to see money build!

I'm terrible with money and I mean terrible. I don't want to disclose how bad on here incase someone outs me but it's pretty bad. I'm great at paying my Bill's but after that I'm all spend spend spend. But I decided to take control of things this year and downloaded the squirrel app after doing a lot of googling into budget apps. I think its run by Barclays and it's kinda like a second bank account so I transfer all my money into it and then it pays me exactly what I need when I need it (so if I've got Bill's going out on the 5th, 18th, 31st etc it pays the exact amount needed on those dates). It also calculates me a weekly allowance for personal spends which it sends to me on a Monday so there is no running out at the end of the month. It's free for the first 3 months then after that its £9.99 subscription per month. I figured that you can always use it for 3 months just the get a grip on the budgeting aspect then set up a second bank account that's free and just transfer my weekly allowence into it. But I've had the app for 5months now and I've decided to keep paying until my debts are all paid off because I really am enjoying the stress free aspect of it.
I do have a referral link as well where we can each get £10 I think it is but I do suggest googling and checking out reviews for yourself. I'm just saying what has worked (so far) for me
squirrel

Write everything down. Everything.

Try looking at one area at a time to see if there is any obvious slack. Take aways, food out etc.
Make sure your bills are all on the best Tarif.

Join cheap eating threads on Facebook. If you have a cheap night every other night you can save a fair bit! And you really enjoy your 'normal' nights.

Budgeting is basic. It's not meant to be fun, but you have to balance the books to keep in control. Ensure there is enough in your account to pay the bills plus a buffer and move the spare money to a separate account for spending. If you don't spend more than what is in that account, you won't go over budget.

You can motivate your self by building in rewards.

Every £50 you save, treat yourself to a bath bomb (or some little luxury).
Every £100, a cheap take away or Wetherspoons meal out.

You really start to notice (and begrudge) wasted money once you start paying attention.

I love budgeting. You can clearly see what you can or cannot afford and plan for bigger expenses. If things are pretty tight, do take your time to shop around for the best deals on utilities, get a cash back credit card etc once you watch your pennies, the pounds look after themselves.

I think the biggest problem is that we were never taught how to budget. Not at home, not in school. I also come from a culture where the man makes the financial decisions. Also, the financial jargon is off putting.
It’s actually not that hard, it’s a lot of fun and empowering. And women are much better at it than men.

Fencing that stocks and shares ISA, how can I get one? Do the high street banks do them?

OP when you say its difficult to save when you see the money, is it cash at home or in a savings account? If savings account then open another one at a different bank and send the money there by standing order. That way you don’t see it when you log on.

Are you paying the credit cards over the minimum?

adora, I googled and chose one that appealed to me (Sheffield Mutual).
I thought: it has to be a sum I can afford to lose, that would go unnoticed coming out of my account, has to be a small ethical company. That’s why I chose them.
HTH.

Thanks for that Fencing I’ll have a look.

thanks for the advice everyone. I have been away for a few days and had run out of mobile data so couldn't post again earlier.
I have been on a tight budget for years (lone parents) so have very little left to cut back on other than kids activities which I dont want to do as I want them to have as much opportunity as possible. I am going to try to open a monzo account as having separate pots will be useful I think. It is just so hard. I have worked out my car needs about £50 a month but it needs 2 new tyres in the next couple of months and then a service is due also. So I am not sure how to do it. I guess you borrow from different pots? but then those will be too low!

I have many many accounts. I have entered all my expenses on the fudget app. This allows me to decide what to send to each account
1)wages goes into one account
Every pay day I pay a certain amount off my credit card. Then I transfer the rest of my money to three accounts.
2) account for direct debits. Each month dd come to x so that goes in to the dd account
3)account for non monthly expenses - car tax, heating oil, TV licence etc plus an extra £50 to cover unforseen expenses
4) overflow. Any extra (due to eg electricity bill being less than budgeted) goes to the overflow account and will go into the dd account next month
5) I put money on a revolut card for groceries and petrol. This has a "vault" facility so every time my loose change gets to a tenner I pay it off against the credit card
6)rent is withdrawn to give to the ll in cash which annoys me but beggars can't be choosers
7)i have built in an amount for savings into my budget. I have 2 post office books. I'm meant to put £100 into savings each month and £100 toward Christmas. Not doing so well there.

This method means I have paid £1,000 off my credit card since Christmas. I have £400 in savings. I have money put aside for a hen and wedding in going to in the summer. I know when bills are due. I have money aside for heating oil (I ran out three times last winter - not gonna happen again).

I've had fudget app since before Christmas. I consider it a game changer and I'm actually very organised anyway so if you find this stuff hard I think it would be super helpful

Yes. Think of savings as a bill. Pp has put it very well. And literally dont go into a shop at all.