Why am I such a wankpuffin with money?

[Kellysrs]

Is it just me, or is anyone else completely frigging useless with their money!

i’m 39 and reasonably educated with a good job. Other areas of my life are well managed but I’m just so incredibly shit with money. when I get paid I go into this fucking ridiculous “ I’m rich” mindset.

i get paid in 14 days and have £460 left in my account. Don’t get me wrong, £460 is fine as my bills are all paid, however I should have a lot more than that

does anyone else just continually fuck up with money like this?

I'd love to be at this stage of budgeting but I'm not even budgeting ahead for following month yet, but I'm not in debt other than mortgage and my flights which are on 0% card & the money I was saving for spending money is now redirected to repaying this.

I've been doing it a while though so please don't take me as a good example. It was just a place I really wanted to get to as my mortgage goes up by £350 from 1 January..

It’s a really simple spreadsheet with cell below equals cell above minus spending. The spreadsheet works on a 31 day system, I just ignore the last two days on months with less than 31 days though I could just delete them. Outgoings and income is set depending on when DDs go out, with a 6% increase each year for things like council tax, salary etc. (I have recently increased this from 1.5%!) Everything is adjusted once costs are crystallised. All my day to day spending is on a credit card that gives points, and I monitor that every couple of days, and have a maximum spend which is in my spreadsheet. I know when car insurance etc are due so those get added. The spreadsheet is formatted so that any overdraft goes flashy red. I keep a separate spreadsheet in the same workbook which monitors spending on my credit card, so I know how much I have spent on ice cream, fuel, meals out etc in any given month. Hope that helps, if you’re a spreadsheet geek there are lots of ideas on line that can be adapted to your individual circumstances.

Comparison is the thief of joy, I've gone from being in debt with three credit cards and even groceries going on cc due to exh not contributing equally to running household to being in the black, taking an expensive family holiday and owning my own home, I'm living life too so I'm ok with where I am. Hate seeing 12 days though compared to hundreds after selling family home before buying current one!

Sounds to me like you're winning then. 🙂

We've saved €100 of the €140 monthly child benefit since the children were born. You don't miss, what you never spent, and it's added up to €9k for the eldest who's 7. The 3 year old has nearly 4 grand.

This growing money will come in handy for expensive school trips, laptops, money towards college/driving lessons/house deposit etc. and our day-to-day budget won't take a hit.

YNAB is great, but if you don't want a paid system, you can still do it yourself on a spreadsheet or with physical envelopes - it's just an envelope budgeting system.

MoneySavingExpert also has some excellent free budgeting resources.

The Psychology of Money is supposed to be really good if you know all of what you're supposed to do but can't stick to it.