I need a budgeting app that will cope with multiple income sources coming in on different days of the month but am ND.

[StarCourt]

Can anyone recommend one that’s fairly simple to set up and maintain? I have ADHD and can be a bit chaotic with impulse spending sometimes. My bills are always paid and I have some debt ( around 2k total that I’m paying off every month in instalments ). I don’t earn loads ( around £28k ) and am dropping my hours from 4 days per week to 3 ( been off work for 3 months due to stress, burnout, depression and various poor health conditions I have a DC who is autistic. Has ADHD and depression and I’m a lone parent. The dropping to 3 days is non negotiable as I just cannot cope any more ). I’ve worked full time all my life until dropping to 4 days last year and I’m 59 years old. I have salary/ UC top up/ PIP/DLA/CB all coming in at different times each month and outgoings going out at different times each month. I need a better way to manage my finances That I can see easily and keep up with.
I have executive function issues and am
Prone to impulse spending.
Any suggestions?

I use an excel spreadsheet due to two amounts coming in over the month. I went through my bank account to see when things went out and set it up using that info so it might look like (all amounts made up!):

1st - salary one £1000- balance £1000
3rd - counsel tax -£100 - balance £900
5th - water -£50 - Balance £850
8th - electric - £50 - balance £800
10th - salary two £1000 - balance £1800

with the running balance running in the last column

if you can't do that could you put all the incomes in a savings account and then just feed them to your current account at the same time as your main salary so you are effectively only working with one income amount?

As PP above, I use an excel workbook. I have a new tab for each month. If you can’t do formulas on it, you could find someone who knows how to do it. Once the formulas are in, it’s so easy to manage. I do update it as I go along, but it’s so easy to track. I always know what I have. I have two current accounts. Once my salary is paid in, I leave what I need to cover outgoings and move the surplus to a different spending account.

Old fashioned way of notebook and pen and paper ? thats my prefered way

I was looking for an app so it would send notifications to pop up on my screen which would then remind me to look at it. I use alarms on my phone etc as reminders but currently have 12 for various things so was looking to avoid another. Im very much out of sight out of mind so reminders being sent directly to my screen I think would help.

Wonder if I might be better putting this in the ND section.

following! 10-12 years ago I had a great one which showed a visual graph with two lines one trending down with all the payments due to come out and another trending up with income. It was so good for seeing where we were really at and made me rein in impulse buys!! That company stopped offering it I can’t even remember who the were now. Money dashboard?
I’ve never found a good way of organising it since.

Do you have one or more income streams that normally comes in on the same day every month?
If so arrange for your direct debits to come out on the same day.

Have two current accounts, with the same bank. Have one that all your money comes in to, at the odd times over the month
Set the second up to pay all your outgoings on direct debit and standing orders, and send over enough to cover them all on last day of the month. Treat this like a monthly pay check.
Then use the first account to buy food and petrol and other weekly expenses.
You may be able to set up a savings account too, to put the spare money in each month, to save for the annual expenses no one ever thinks about. Things like insurance and Christmas and holidays.
Use your ADHD need to know to check all the accounts on the one app every day to check they are on track.

Hello, I would strongly suggest you look at the app YNAB (you need a budget). It provides a template for you which you can build on if you want. You can also link your bank accounts to it so it will automatically track your money going in and out. It has app versions which I have on my phone and Ipad and also a desktop version. It is a yearly subscription of approx £80 but it is well worth the cost. I have been using it for 8 years and it is fantastic. Their support team is also really responsive.

When I had to take ill health retirement and was suddenly getting pension, uc, pip, esa, cb on different days I looked for this (i have asd I need to be organised) but couldn't find one so set reminders and accounts up to help me.
I have reminders in my calendar which let me know when payments in will be made.
I then have a list in my notes app of regular payments and regular income amounts.
I have two current accounts and a savings account. Each month I leave enough money in my main CA to pay all direct debits, I then transfer all other money to my savings account and then move a set amount into my second CA each week to pay for general spends/food shop etc.
If you know how much your direct debits come too is there a payment that adds up to that amount? My pension equals my dd so I leave that in my CA and move all the others across.
Also it helps me to have budgets for things eg food shop is £70 a week, have a bit set aside for dc school trips, educational equipment, new shoes etc that are unexpected if I dont spend this I leave in my savings to role onto next month's just incase.

Ynab! It’s great at multiple incomes and very simple.

I'm unsure exactly what you are looking for, but I use an app called WPS Lifestage Money (formerly Moneyhub) and I connect it to my accounts and cards, and it logs every transaction in and out. You have a view where you can see your balances, you can see you monthly income and spending in charts.

You have to spend a bit of time categorising your transactions, but it learns so it eventually knows how to categorise the regular ones.

It costs about £15 a year. I wouldn't be without it, I've used it for around 5 years now.

I use it for tracking net worth and have all my assets on it, but you can use it just for budgeting.

@StarCourt I also have ADHD / impulsive spending and multiple random income sources each month.

I tried a ton of different budgeting apps and spreadsheets and never had much success after a couple of weeks as they all required too much mental effort to sustain and I could never build the proper habits.

So I went looking for the easiest possible solution and found one that works well for me.

You want to pick a number based on your largest bill, inflate it and call that zero. If you have more money than that, you can buy the thing you want to buy. If it's below, you have no money and can't buy it.

I use £1k as my "zero" since my biggest bill is rent at £650.

It means my bank balance never drops low enough that a bill can't be paid or that I can't do a food shop (that's why you need slack between the bill amount and the zero number), but it stops me overspending as I cut everything unnecessary the moment I go under £1k in the bank until I'm next paid.

Since the next pay day is only a few days away due to the trickling in of money all month it's easy to stick to as "I can buy it really soon" but I often find by the time I have the money I no longer want it. It helps with stopping the random impulse purchases I regret leaving more money for the things I really do want.

No faffing around with budget apps or figuring out when things are coming in or out, just a simple binary "yes/no" to "can I buy the thing". All you need is a bank balance check on your phone.

I like the idea but my income sources come into 3 different accounts and go out of 2!

Can you not consolidate a bit? I used to have several accounts to try and help with budgeting but I ended up closing the extra ones and sticking to just one main one as everything was getting too complicated for no real benefit.

I love the Emma app - it automatically syncs to your bank accounts so can handle multiple
income streams. And then you can tell it what your budget is and how to default categorise certain types of transaction (eg Sainsbury’s is groceries, Trainline is transport - you have the ability to override that) so it does the tracking for you as the month goes on.