Come budget with me?

[CrazyCatsAndKittens]

I’m really rubbish at budgeting and tend to overspend after pay day and then be on a tight budget for the rest of the month. I’d like to even things out. Does anyone want to join me?

I watched some of The Budget Mom You tube videos which are great, even if she is very shouty.

The ynab seems complex, everything needs to be. Accounted for pots or not.
Certainly not paying for it.

@Nsky

The ynab seems complex, everything needs to be. Accounted for pots or not. Certainly not paying for it.

Fair enough, horses for courses. But the “everything has to be accounted for” is its genius - you have to make decisions, you can’t just have “savings” you have very specific savings, if you change your mind or spend on something unexpected you readjust the money to allow for it - it’s very hands on but it really makes you think.

@CrazyCatsAndKittens

Thank you!

I tried using YNAB before but it was too complicated for me. One problem I have is that my income varies a fair bit month to month. I also have a lot of unexpected costs with the kids, for example this month I needed to buy a lot of clothes. Summer is the worst, I always run out of money in the summer holidays.

I think I need to try and save a little every month for things like birthdays/Christmas, clothes and shoes and I think I need to be a lot more realistic about my budget and not just stick my head in the sand.

This is your problem. New clothes for children isn’t an unexpected cost. Children grow out of their clothes. You need to sit down and work out how much you pay for everything over a full year. Not just your direct debits, include birthday and Christmas gifts, trips during school holidays, spending money for the children - everything. The divide each item by 12 and you can see how much you need to put aside to save for those things. Use a budget planner - there’s loads of apps available. Once, when we were overspending and on a very tight budget, we dealt in cash only and stopped using our cards. We withdrew a fixed amount every Friday that covered food, petrol, spending money, dinner money and bus fares. When it was spent we didn’t withdraw any more until the following Friday.

What’s YNAB?

This is your problem. New clothes for children isn’t an unexpected cost. Children grow out of their clothes. You need to sit down and work out how much you pay for everything over a full year. Not just your direct debits, include birthday and Christmas gifts, trips during school holidays, spending money for the children - everything. The divide each item by 12 and you can see how much you need to put aside to save for those things. Use a budget planner - there’s loads of apps available.

This with knobs on. You don't need to pay for a fancy app to do this. I've done ok this past year with a spreadsheet but I know I can do better so I'm giving YNAB a go. Even chucking £25 a month into a savings account for the summer holidays will give you a head start.

@Soontobe60

What’s YNAB?

It's an app. You need a budget.

It's hard when you live paycheque to paycheque isn't it. But, as others have said, if you can even squirrel away £10, £15, £25 a month, then when things like summer hols, days out, children needing new clothes it, you've got a cushion there.

I'm focussing on getting out of debt. But I also understand if I don't start accounting for these 'less regular' expenses, I'll end up going into debt to cover them, whether that's a credit card or a loan from my mum.
So first up I'm getting an emergency fund put together (slowly). Once this is set up, I can start putting money into sinking funds, pots, cash envelopes - whatever you want to call them they're essentially the same thing. I'm hoping that at the latest, by the end of next year, I'll have a solid emergency fund of £1k (to start), a good set of sinking funds set up with healthy balances in each, and a lot less debt.

It's mad to think I'm earning no more than I was in January, when we would be scraping for food by the third week, no payments at all towards debts (not even minimums) and no savings - to now.
It was hard work to change my mindset but as soon as I started tracking every spend, and basically seeing how much I was wasting on things I didn't need or sometimes even really want, I knew that essentially I had to change! It was simple - what was more important to me - a new jumper and a book I won't read for months now, or £20 extra towards being debt free/emergency savings. If I want to ever own a house, I knew what was the better decision.

That's not to say I NEVER spend on 'fun' things - but I try and consider each purchase before I make it.

It's not exciting, but it's necessary!

Thanks! Yes, it’s been a wake-up call for me. I never thought I would be able to put money aside every month for things like Christmas or kids clothes, but I can see it’s the way forward. Even though my finances are variable, they don’t need to be so chaotic!

@CrazyCatsAndKittens I think trying to make it more organized is definitely the key to it being less stressful!
I like that TBM plots everything on a calendar - so she can see what date she gets paid and then what bills will come out before her next paycheque - especially handy if you are paid a couple of times over the month I think.

Are you following her method now/have you got a budget planner of any kind?

Lots of helpful tips here!
I thought I was good at budgeting but I’ve been slack for a few months. I think I’ve been prioritising savings over budgeting and putting more towards savings than I should which leaves less to actually live on and results in taking money back out of savings.
I like the daily/weekly allowance!

Yes, some great tips! I downloaded and printed out The Budget Mom’s stuff, so will sit down this evening and fill it in. I suppose whatever method you use, it only works if you actually do it! I’ll let you know how I get on.

Another vote for Monzo from me. People say it's for younger people but I'm Gen X and I love it.

A couple of other apps I use are Moneyhub, which logs all your bank accounts, credit cards, mortgage payments, etc so you can keep an eye on everything in one place. I also use Chip for savings (I joined via Money Saving Expert site - also recommended). With chip they have an algorithm which works out if you can save money that week based on whats in your bank account (you can turn this feature off or tell Chip to not to do this if your account is under £500, for example). So I get messages from chip saying they have calculated a £20.14 saving and they take it from my account and add it to my Chip savings, I've saved just over £400 this way and hardly noticed (I know not everyone can do this)

I would also do the budget spreadsheet that the MSE website has www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/budget-planning/

@RaiseTheBeastie - this is exactly what I have been doing and it is really working for me. I started in January and I have got lots of pots with money in, for instance I have tried saving £1 a day for Christmas, etc and it never works but I have religiously put £100 per month into a Christmas pot as soon as I am paid and I have £500 already saved for Christmas which is something I always say I will do but it never happens.

I also paid my house insurance in one go instead of monthly direct debits. I now put money into a pot so I can pay it in one go next year and doing this I managed to get my insurance down by £120 pa.

Similar to @TomorrowIsAnotherDae but I use plum, it rounds up my transactions but you can set it it for easy, eager etc. I started using it last year and have saved well over £1000 in fact prob closer to £2k as I've withdrawn for big nice purchases last year.

You can also set it to save a % to stick and shares, however I lost about £70 when market crashed in covid but its now back up to making money.