Help please - trying to organise family budget

[Littlemiss74]

Hi - I‘ve posted in Credit Crunch too as wasn’t sure which would be better.

I need to get on top of our monthly spending. Current situation is this:

• Both salaries are paid into joint account.
• From joint account a set amount is paid into Bills account which covers all bills/direct debits etc
• A set amount is paid into a Food account which we use to buy all food for the month

This all works very well. The problem is with what happens with the money that is left over in the joint account. My DH and basically use that to buy whatever we need (or want) within reason and it quickly disappears leaving us short of money a week before payday.

Today I have done a breakdown of our spends since last payday and have grouped them as follows:

Hairdressers
School uniform & shoes & equipment
Coffees/eating out
Holiday activities
Football subs
Ballet subs
Clothes
House bits
Bits for puppy
Random amazon purchases, books etc
Ballet uniform
Garden fence panel replacement

How can i manage our money better so that we make it last the whole month? I know that what we have left over after paying bills & food should be plenty to get us through the month but our crap management of it means we are constantly running out.

Also please could you tell if you have ‘your own’ money? DH and I both have our own bank accounts but don’t really use them unless we transfer some money to buy a present for the other. I’m wondering if it would be worth allocating us both an amount each month & use this for our personal things like clothes, coffees, toiletries, hair cuts etc?

Really appreciate any advice as it’s stressing me out trying to balance everything.

I would swap the subs to come out of the bills account so that these are accounted for monthly

I think for things like holiday activities/school uniform/larger house purchases you need a savings account system so you put away 50/100 a month so that money is there when needed.

Then there is less in the joint account for you to be able to spend, and all necessary spends are properly managed. After that it's up to you whether you go for a spends amount each (useful if one of you likes to spend a lot more than the other) or transfer a weekly spends budget into the joint account so it's available to both of you (probably better if one of you is more likely to be taking kids places) but with a weekly budget it means only a couple of days until the next instalment rather than running out of money 10 days before payday if you overspend

Thank you @muddledmidget when you say to transfer a weekly spends budget, transfer from where to where?
I’m thinking we probably do both need our own money to buy things for us and then yes a separate amount for family expenses

I put all my wages into an instant access savings account when it arrives, and then transfer money into my current account each week to spend it (I'm not great at realising how much month is left at the end of my money sometimes, and prefer to know I'll get some more spending money each Friday! Plus it helps with saving as if it's not needed for weekly spends it stays in the savings account building up)

Hello. We have two joint accounts; one for bills, one for food etc.

Everything else goes into a Monzo account which I then split into pots (saving pots- the app makes it SO EASY).

I have pots for:
clothing
hair cuts
christmas
birthdays
car
puppy
emergency fund

I put a set amount into each of these every month then just transfer out of the pots when I need them.

I set a weekly budget and make a note of what has been spent in a notebook. Just '1st sept, M&S, £23.54'. Then stop when it is spent - that is the important step we introduced a few years ago

We don't have our own money in other accounts, but have an amount allocated per month.

It doesn't matter whether you have one account or ten, what you have to do is keep track of what you spend against you budget.

I do keep quite a lot of paper accounts now though.

Can you post an actual breakdown OP? Income and expenditure? Might be able to help if we can see a bit more where the money goes.

I would also say that any coffee/eating out comes from the food account.

I agree having some savings pots would be a good idea. You know birthdays, Christmas and uniform are going to happen every year and it stops you stressing about it. A pot for home maintenance would cover the fence panel and any other unexpected expenses like a new washing machine.

I can't see anything for travel or running a car.

Also annual and irregular expenses like insurance, appliance replacement, vets fees if you have pets and Christmas and holidays too if you spend money on those, and savings for a rainy day.

All the above need to be covered before you look at non essential spending although you can adjust the amounts if there isn't anything left, eg you might decide an annual holiday is less of a priority then being able to eat out, days out, gadgets, new clothes for adults, beauty treatments etc.

Also please could you tell if you have ‘your own’ money? DH and I both have our own bank accounts but don’t really use them unless we transfer some money to buy a present for the other. I’m wondering if it would be worth allocating us both an amount each month & use this for our personal things like clothes, coffees, toiletries, hair cuts etc

It is likely to be worth it if one or both of you spends a lot on discretionary personal items like this and you need to cut back to make sure you can cover all your essentials. Give each of you a fixed budgeted amount and when it's gone, it's gone and you have to wait until next month.

We have both salaries paid into the joint account. All household and DC’s expenditure is paid from that account including joint savings. The same amount is paid into each of our personal accounts for our own spending.

I second the Monzo pots suggestion, they’re fabulous. I have pots for Xmas, birthdays, school holiday spend, clothes etc. It really helps you plan how to spend your money.

If I put £100 in a separate clothes pot and see something I want, then check and see that I’m down to £20 in that pot - it really pulls my mind into the ‘eek I’ve spent 80 quid already, better give this one a miss’ mindset. It’s fab.

@RubixMania I like the sound of the Monzo pots. Is this a bank? So I would need to move all my current bank accounts & direct debits to them? And is it all visible on an app?

Monzo is an online bank run through an app. Download the app and you can sign up for it online, takes about 30 mins.

No need to switch all your current accounts etc. I use my Monzo purely for pots- I transfer £500 into it each payday then split that into pots mentioned in my previous post.

I’m wondering if it would be worth allocating us both an amount each month & use this for our personal things like clothes, coffees, toiletries, hair cuts etc?

We do. Each person has ‘pocket money’ for discretionary spending.

Expenses relating to children or house maintenance etc come out of the shared account and we don’t subdivide that. Just try to be sensible and not overspend and it works most of the time.

Does Monzo pay interest on the pots?

No, no interest on money kept in pots on Monzo x