Budgeting

[shedidwhatnow]

I want to work on our budget and have a monthly amount for everything.

We currently budget weekly.

How do you budget monthly when some months are longer than others? £75 per week food shopping works out at £325 a month but if one month has an extra week it’ll be a struggle.

Apologies in advance if this is a daft question!!

Hi OP, are you still around? I finally got around to updating my budget - it's not quite there yet, so it's a work in progress.

I think the key is trying to think of every single thing that you pay for - so including things like...weekly swimming, kids pocket money, Union membership fees, memberships like the National Trust, magazine subscriptions, regular treats, Amazon Prime, professional fees, regular charity donations 😬...

I wondered whether you might have under-estimated birthday and Christmas presents (because I was inclined to, then I was horrified when I actually worked it out).

And like other posters, I thought your mobile bills were high, and that your clothing costs seemed low (although I find things like clothing really difficult to estimate).

How are you getting on with your budgeting anyway? I've identified a couple of categories of mine that need looking at for either a cheaper deal, or cancelling.

I’m still here!

I possibly have underestimated birthdays tbh but my partner and I don’t buy for each other - just the kids and I buy for my brother and parents so it’s not loads of people. My plan is to use the second free council tax month this month to boost my birthday fund.

I’ve changed the mobiles! Sim only contracts with 3 for £8 per month each do well be saving just under £20 there. Can’t change the broadband till August, I checked when I called them.

On the whole it’s not going that well though tbh! I still have all my pots and the ones that should still be full are but we’ve overspent so so much. By hundreds I’d say. We’ve had such an expensive month. So my spreadsheet for March is looking seriously depressing. After I’ve topped up all the pots etc we’ll have less than £200 left I think.

It’s good that you’ve identified some areas you can get the costs down. I think that’s one of the most satisfying feelings ever!

Oh, that's great about the mobiles 🙂.

And it sounds like you don't buy heaps of presents - I think ours need looking at TBH. I'm not sure when to stop buying for younger relatives when they become adults 😬.

Do you think you've captured everything in your budget? It might help to look through your bank statement and credit card bill every month to make sure that there's nothing regular that you're missing. I'd like to start doing this every month. At least once you've got everything listed, you should have a more realistic estimate of how much you might be able to save.

It's amazing how it all adds up 😕.

You definitely need a "stuff I forgot" line for the first year or so!
Birthday parties are a killer for the gifts and birthdays line, both throwing them and sending children to other people's, gift in hand.

@SideHustle I suppose the financial sense we are lucky to have a small family and we aren’t all particularly close so there aren’t loads to buy for. I’ve read and heard of people having to buy ridiculous amounts of presents for nieces and nephews etc.

I agree about the birthday parties. There always seems to be a run of them too.

We definitely need a stuff I forgot line! I’m trying to think what we overspent on this month - food for sure, eating out, I had to pay to have someone’s car repaired that I damaged, tickets for a show my son was in, a hotel I thought was already paid but wasn’t and there was definitely more! So loads of these things are obviously things that won’t happen every month but you’ll be guaranteed something else will crop up to take its place.

We really need to be stricter with our food shops this month and NO TAKEAWAYS.

£250 on eating out this month according to Monzo! And only 4 of those meals were over £20 so just shows how the smaller amounts really add up. So the £100 entertainment budget did well

😬 but at least you know where the money is going! What about setting a limit of eating out once a month, and one takeaway per month? We do something similar to this, and it works really well.

Yep I think that’s a good idea! We managed the whole of January with only one takeaway and it was fine but we fell back into bad habits in February! Oops!

Payday!!

Didn’t have time this morning to fill my pots but did most of them at work just now. It’s such a satisfying feeling seeing the money sitting there for when you need it

Had to add an extra £50 onto the hair fund and make it a hair ETC fund because I definitely need to spend some money getting wedding ready

Woo hoo!!! Love filling the pots!

I hope it’s not crass to update this thread with all that’s going on in the world right now but I really like seeing my progress each month.

Payday today so filled pots which is such a great feeling. Also managed to pay an extra £400 towards our credit card so it’s under £4k for the first time in ages. So determined to get it paid off.

Managed to get my gas/electric down by almost £30! Have marked in my spreadsheet to remember to change broadband provider in August because I know we are overpaying but can only get the price down with our current provider if we take out a whole new contract which I don’t want to do.

I could look at doing a comparison for our home and life insurances but the thought of going through all the questions is just too much. It’s bad enough doing it for the car once a year.

For anyone who is struggling with budgeting I really do recommend being completely honest with yourself and making a spreadsheet containing every monthly bill and every annual expense split into twelve. For so long I put off doing it because in all honesty I didn’t want to be ‘paying for’ next years insurance etc now and wanted as much money as possible available to spend but I’m so glad I bit the bullet. Even having a pot for clothes (which I very rarely buy) means I don’t feel guilty for doing so because the money is there.

For so long we had our heads buried in the sand in regards to how much money we actually had available to spend every month so would spend everything only to then have something big like an MOT or some flights to pay for. Which is when we ended up resorting to a credit card.

Due to timing issues I’m sure there are some annual expenses we won’t have the whole amount saved to pay for this year but we’ll have a really good contribution and by the same time next year the pot will be full.

For so long I put off doing it because in all honesty I didn’t want to be ‘paying for’ next years insurance etc now and wanted as much money as possible available to spend but I’m so glad I bit the bullet

Sounds great OP, that's the mindset, thinking about essentials you know you have to pay for even if a few months away before you spend on day to day treats. Also having spare money for things like broken appliances and car repairs.

I suppose one unintended benefit of coronavirius, if you're fortunate to keep your job and still get paid of course is that you can't spend any money on eating out, days out, clothes, haircuts etc, probably spending less on fuel so you might find you have extra spare money to throw at the credit card?

Rather than doing it on a spreadsheet, you should download an app like Emma or Yolt. These are super secure but let you track your spending and allocate it to various categories.

There’s a post about budgeting on yourmoneyexplained.co.uk that breaks down how to set up a sustainable budget :)

Do you have an emergency fund? You really should start one and aim to have enough in there for 3-6 months bills or wages.

30 days have september, april, june, and november.....all the...

I use monzo to help me budget - would reccommend highly