Household budget query

[Littlemiss74]

I'm just reviewing our household budget. We have a joint account where our salaries are paid to and from there we move a chunk of money to a 'bills' account to cover all bills direct debits. Food also goes into separate account.

This has always worked well and I like knowing all the main bills are taken care of. The problem is with the money that is left over in the joint account. It is just a pot of money that seems to whittle away fairly quickly between me & DH. Everything that is not a main bill comes from here so; clothes, haircuts & colour, school dinners, petrol, eating out, cinema etc etc. If DH or I need anything this comes out of here too.
I'm finding it really hard to manage all these expenses and making sure we don't run out before next payday.

I'd love to hear how other people manage these kind of expenses to get some ideas for keeping on top of it better. I'm thinking do I need to set up loads of different mini accounts to account for everything?

Any tips would be really appreciated.

I have 10 different accounts for different categories so I have to think if I haven't got money left in my clothes budget then I have to wait until next month.

I have a pocket money account

So bills go into one separate account
Holiday money into account - like annual hols and weekends away etc
Then pocket money is transferred by standing order to a completely different bank in my account. Now this money is for my cloths, haircut, fuel, ( I only use about £12/15 per month, coffees sundries

Once it’s gone it’s gone

Research Monzo and the ‘pots’ function. It’s changed my life!

Thanks for the replies, very helpful.

ArnoldBee are all those 10 accounts with the same bank/provider? Is it easy to manage them all?

Off to look at Monzo!

I move £X into another account and then use that a few weeks later.

It’s keeping in mind things that don’t normally crop up .... example school just advised essential trip and needed £50. Driving licence expired so another £40 etc

It helps to keep a bit separate

Do you save? That really helps.

I would also split the money between you so you have a better control.

We have separate accounts and DH pays X bills and I pay X bills. We pay joint for some things. Works for us.

I think the different joint accounts is a good approach but just needs a little bit of tweaking. Would it help to separate out the discretionary expenses like cinema, haircuts from the necessary ones like school dinners and petrol? That way you can see whether it will be ok to go out etc. Not tried Monzo myself but I see Lloyds allow customers to have separate saving pots (interest rates are still awful though )

I do.it the opposite way from you. Salaries go into a joint account and all direct debits come out of that. I only keep enough money in that to cover DDs + contingency - everything else gets moved into different accounts so spends / groceries / savings.pots
All using the same bank and online banking

I do the same as you but include every other regular bill in my bills account. So I'm just left with shopping and petrol to pay for. I think it shows a better picture. I record everything on a giant spreadsheet.
You could put away clothes money into this account too?
My DP and I have a fun account which we only use for cinema, coffees, lunches and dinners out. Once it's low we just don't go!!

I have another thread on here but I’ve basically spilt all expenses for the year into 12 and made a pot in Monzo for them.

Before we just used to separate a weekly amount for food, fuel and spending for that week then whatever was left just disappeared. I think I was kind of burying my head in the sand a bit because by having a pot for everything I actually get a true picture of what we have available to spend rather than it looking like much more because we ignored everything else.

Usually I’d feel guilty about buying clothes but this month I haven’t because I have money sitting there labelled as to be spent on clothes and I know I’ll have the same again next month.

shedidwhatnow are you able to link to your other thread please or is it recent so easy to find? This sounds a good idea to me, I think I do need to create more pots for all the various things so that everything is accounted for. Not sure there'll be much left after doing that though!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/3798281-Budgeting?msgid=93613827#93613827

I know what you mean! I think that’s why I put off doing it for so long. I liked thinking we had £X amount after bills when really we only have half of that if we’re properly planning for things BUT it will make life much easier.

We do the opposite. Salaries paid into our own accounts, and we each pay a direct debit into our joint account for the same amount each month. All household bills, food, kids clothes etc come from the joint account. From the joint account we have regular payments set up for savings, holidays, car, kids activities all with the same bank to make it easier. We use our own accounts for going out, clothes, hobbies. Boring but it works!

I don't like lots of pots or accounts but we do move money into savings every month for house/car expenses and we both get personal spends. We use a cashback credit card for fuel and food which gets paid off in full each month so the only thing which comes out of the joint account is entertainment. Hair, clothes, hobbies etc comes out of our personal accounts. Our children are grown up though so it might be more difficult with children although presumably you know what dinner money is needed for the month and can budget a certain amount for clothes. .

Hmmmm
We charge to a joint credit card account that earns points and cash back. The credit card does a report that categorises every purchase eg restaurants, clothing shops, petrol, etc etc.
We pay it off in full every month from the joint account. By tracking the balance on the credit card versus the known budget amount we have disposable each month we both know instantly if we should be frugal or go ahead with a purchase.
It helps we are both frugal in nature so one of us isn’t spending freely while the other is left thinking they cannot do or buy anything.

I forgot to mention that not only does the credit card track by category all our purchases with monthly & annual reports, and provide points/cash back but it also has extra benefits like travel insurance, purchase protection(you buy an item, it breaks, they refund you etc), and so on. It’s better imho than having a seperate bank account for each type of purchase.

You haven't said whether the money runs out because there simply isn't enough of it to cover the things you need to buy like DC/school expenses, petrol, other car costs etc or if you are spending more than is affordable on non essentials like your own and DHs personal spending.

Do you know the answer to the above? Do you have enough on paper?

Maybe try to separate further into essentials and non essentials and also make sure that you are saving for annual and irregular expenses like Christmas, insurances that can't be paid monthly for the same price as annual payments, car and household repairs etc as things like these can really add up and need to be covered before you spend on discretionary items like eating out, cinema, expensive haircuts etc.

I like spending on my Tesco credit card because it collects points that we can then convert into meals out or day trips which really does add up when you put virtually everything on the credit card. So we both put a set amount in each month to a joint account for mortgage and bills etc. And then I also put money into a personal account for my own bills (phone, professional registration and money towards my car insurance and MOT & Service etc. so that when it comes time to pay those things its already saved up).
But then everything else I just put on my credit card but I keep a budgeting app and write down in it literally everything I spend so I know how much I’m spending each month to make sure I still have savings left. Then when I get paid monthly I pay my joint account, my personal account and my credit card in full and anything left over goes into two savings accounts, one ISA for long term saving goals and one easy access for Christmas, Birthdays, emergencies etc. I know it seems a faff to write everything down but for me it works and is easier than having so many different accounts for different things and we really benefit from the credit card points.