Advice starting from scratch

[Thedemigorgonsbehindyou]

Am terrified and need some help planning forward please. Long story short have lived in with work for most of adult life, had a breakdown list everything, went into emergency accommodation, halfway house, now have got a 1 bed council flat offered, coming out of breakdown, engaging with services have a structured plan to get back into work with key work support. All good so far
bUT I’m terrified of making it work. I’ve never had to budget a whole flat, food, live in so bills etc taken care of. Can anyone help with an easy how to budget for life stating from scratch? I feel like I should know this already and it’s hard even admitting that.
tia

Money in, money out.
Make lists and try to think of everything.
Then make a list of everything you spend money on, every time you spend money. This tracking of your spending can help to show things that are not on your first lists.
The things I find the hardest to budget for are those that occur only once or twice a year. I have a payment to the freeholder of my flat, which is twice yearly. I have a flat maintenance fee, from the management company, which is yearly (they did do monthly but changed to wanting it once a year). Car road tax, car insurance, breakdown cover, home contents insurance... all those things I pay once per year. What you pay for monthly, vs yearly, will be different but there may be things that you pay only once or twice a year.
Christmas is once a year... you know you will spend more in December, so you need to budget for that throughout the year, building up a pot of money to spend in December.

A lot of your accommodation costs sound like they are all rolled in to one payment. So make a list of the things that you pay for which can change, such as food, transport to work, clothing, cosmetics & personal care items. Each category can be given it's own spending limit.

No budget will be perfect. It will take at least 3 months to get going with budgeting, it will change often. Once you have got to grips with how your expenses change each week, your budget will start to become more regular, with occasional reviews to categories where you are overspending or underspending.

Firstly write everything down- paper or computer, money in (work, benefits, maintenance etc) and then have two columns, one for fixed bills you have to pay each month so rent, council tax, utilities etc. then a second column for variable monthly expenses so food, entertainment, clothes

Once you deduct the second two columns from your first you should have an amount of money which you need to save part of for things that are not monthly eg holidays, Christmas, gifts, annual expenses like insurance. Put these savings into a separate savings account, your bank should have this option (eg NatWest have an enhanced interest rate for the first £150 a month you save).

You may find it's easier to draw your spending money out in cash each week for budgeting each week, once it's gone it's gone. The trick i find is to pay all bills the day after pay day. It's got me to 50 without debt, even when I was very low income, it's discipline really, saying no to yourself, but by saving up for predictable annual costs you avoid the cycle of debt and interest

Make a list, 2 columns one money in, one money out.
Write down everything you spend and after a while you will see where your spending is. If you prefer to spend cash each day, just draw enough to see you through at most a week. Good luck.

I would recommend setting up direct debits for all your bills. So

Rent
Council tax (ask for 25% discount if you live alone)
Gas
Electricity
Water and sewerage (sometimes these are 2 different companies).
TV licence
Contents insurance
Pet insurance
Car insurance
Road tax
RAC/AA membership
Life insurance
Mobile phone
Regular subscriptions like gym
Professional memberships
Virgin media/sky
Union membership .
Boiler servicing etc

We have a bills account for all our direct debits. We bank with HSBC and the mobile banking app has a page where if you have DDs it makes a projected balance after bills.

Also think about one off spends like birthday gifts and Christmas ( a bit too late for this year!). So think I want to spend £50 per head at Christmas for say 6 people. That's £300. To achieve that you need to say 300 divided by 12months is £25 per month . Pop that away in a savings account and then you won't get into debt each December and you'll earn some interest.
You can do the same for car expenses like MOT tyres and servicing ; holidays and such like.

We also have another current account for variable spends like petrol and diesel, food and anything else.

You can either get wages/benefits paid into the bills account and transfer to the spends account or vice versa.

Then just keep a regular eye on your finances. I would also recommend checking that you are getting the cheapest deals for everything. I put a note in my phone's calendar to look for cheaper car insurance about a month before its due for renewal for example.

Also check that you are getting all your benefits entitlements and your tax code is correct.

Finally identify the difference between WANT and NEED.

...and if you get stuck, ask for help from the CAB or free advice agencies.

Thank you all

I have a good income and outgoing sheet from an old job in housing. I can email it to you if you like. Send me a Pm.

Good luck in your new place its exciting.