Talk to Barclays about budgeting - £200 voucher prize draw! MORE QUESTIONS ADDED! NOW CLOSED

[MichelleMumsnet]

Barclays have asked us to find out how Mumsnetters approach budgeting and what banks can do to make the process easier.

Here’s what Barclays say, “Raising a family is no walk in the park and presents its fair share of challenges (from how much TV the kids should watch to making sure they get their 7-a-day) and budgeting for childcare is probably one of the biggest challenges mums and dads face, especially if you’re a working parent.

The Government’s planned childcare subsidy for September 2015 means that working parents can join a new scheme offering a 20% rebate on childcare costs, worth up to £2,000 a year. For many working mums and dads this is big news – but a long way off. So, how do you handle budgeting in the meantime?

We’d love to find out more about the budgeting challenges that you’re up against as a working mum or dad – and what could be done to make managing your money easier before the subsidy is introduced in September next year.”

So, how do you manage budgeting within your family? Maybe you have a comprehensive spreadsheet which you use to keep track of spending? Or perhaps you are a keen voucher collector to help save money? Do you have any ideas on how your bank could help you make budgeting easier? Whatever they are, we’d love to hear them.

Everyone who adds their thoughts to this thread will be entered into a prize draw to win a £200 Love2Shop voucher.

Thanks and good luck,

MNHQ

I am useless. We do not budget. Every bill is a surprise. Every breakdown a bit of a crisis. luckily I am in work and can generally manage to cover things in time.

I use vouchers and deals to eke out the budget. I seek out discounts in shops and online, to make sure I am not needlessly spending money.

We have 3 seperate accounts for personal spending, food and bills to ensure we don't spend money which is allocated to other areas (i.e bill money spent on food).

For my personal account I have income and expenditure sheets filled in 6 months in advance so that I can plan in advance for any months where I may have a shortfall.

There are a few things banks could do to help families budget -

• It would be helpful (especially to people who have a variable income) if there was an online banking tool that let you imput your regular outgoings, and then calculated disposable income for the month each time your wages were paid.

• Banks should give people reasonable notice period for any changes to their accounts. I don't personally believe banks give people ample time to adapt to changes to their planned overdrafts or loan agreements.

Ds is 8 and I've been automatically transferring £20 a month into a separate account ready for when those bigger child bills like residential school trips come along. Then I should be bake to use that fund without it hurting so much.

Online banking has been a huge help as DH and I are both pretty rubbish at managing our money, but this way we can shift money into our joint account to pay fir those unexpected bills like MOT etc

We have more than one bank account to make budgeting easier. One each for spending money and then one for bills so we know we have the right money in there for the right time in the month (including childcare). We also have an isa for savings. The children have a bank account each so that they can save their own money if they wasn't something big. It also happens that I am a Barclays customer and use banking on my mobile. This really helps me quickly check and move money around if needs be to avoid going overdrawn.

I have a spreadsheet where I log our outgoings and income, I update it every so often with what bills we have paid to keep a track on what we have spent or need to have available for bills.

I think banks could provide assistance by providing customers with spreadsheet budget calculators which could be tailored to certain groups ie. family, individual, pensioner, saving for a car/house. I would find it useful to know when certain bills have been paid, for example a text message from my bank when a direct debit has been collected for certain things like mortgage or credit card bill. I used to have a balance alert sent by text from my bank but it was always at an inconvenient time when I didn't have time to study it, it would be good to select a preferred day and time when this is sent.

I have an estimated amount in my budget for food but it would be really good if this could be identified on a monthly basis from our actual spending eg. bank identifies expenditure from supermarkets and categorises this into food, utilities etc. If this data could be automatically put into a spreadsheet so that more realistic budgeting could be set this would be extremely useful.

I do collect reward vouchers from supermarkets for days out, and reward points for shops like Boots which I use during months when we have higher expenditure for example the month before we go on holiday.

I don't use spreadsheets, but m now debating seeing the number of people who do.

All the bills are on direct debit, set where possible to go out straight after we have been paid. My strategy is to run us as tight as possible. I have a separate bank account, and if it looks like we will be in the black (sadly unusual recently) I move money out of the account to prevent casual spending.

I have a feel for when bigger bills are due - car insurance, MOT/car tax, and budget for them in anticipation.

I like the ideal of banks subdividing what you spend. As in X amount on cash withdrawal, X amount on direct debits, X amount in various stores, which would again be useful broken down. I could then see how much I spend at the Coop, and how much in larger superstores etc.

My own spreadsheet would do this for me, but if the bank did it that would be a draw.

WE have a joint account that me and my husband pay into each month, enough to pay the bills and a little left over for emergencies. if we dont spend it we put it away for days out. We both work so use the voucher scheme to pay for nursery, it helps a little.
Food shopping wise we just do a big shop once a fortnight otherwise its too expensive. Then fill in with little shops for milk, veg etc. We always cook extra and freeze it, and have a least one large roast that does 3 or 4 meals or sandwiches.
We keep our own accounts so there is no arguing if we need /want something, but we dont use creadit so if we cant afford it we go without.

We did spend several years literally listing every item of expenditure so we could keep track of finances. It was sooo time consuming though. Now we just keep track of bigger expenses.

Childcare is hugely expensive these days but at the same time, it is our most precious thing that is being looked after - our children - and those working in childcare need to earn a decent income too - so it really is a tricky one to juggle.

My budget covers every penny and I broadly follow it. My work isn't regular so I have mortgage, bills and food out of income that is definite and then a list of other stuff in order of preference that is covered if I earn more. I use a list rather than a spreadsheet to track my spending but I usually follow it all in my head. I just use the list so I know how much I have for everything.

I get really good deals on everything and use vouchers as much as possible. I'd like a text at the end of every day telling me what my balance is. It might make me rethink my plans for the next day

With our second child it just about makes sense for me to go back to work due to nursery fees!

Food shopping Is done on our joint credit card so I can see what has been spent in total. We always provide actuals so we're not paying too much for our fuel and track usage on line.

For big ticket spends we try to save monthly.

When we moved into our own home, we tweaked a budget spreadsheet I set up when we got married - as that was very savings-oriented & as we were living with my inlaws didn't need to spend much on the day-to-day things just contributed to their household expenses.

Every month we'd input the receipts to see how we were doing with our spending. I also collect some vouchers; do some survey work where I'm paid in Love2Shop vouchers plus I have a few loyalty cards - so I can end up saving money on my groceries for the main part as I don't see the point in splurging on unnecessary things. A monthly meal planner was helping me stick to a more rigorous grocery allowance.

Apart from the fixed cost of ds (like childcare) I'm a happy buyer of second hand clothes and toys (and selling things on afterwards) and look for vouchers and deals for meals and days out

We have a joint account which we both pay in to, this is kept deliberately short, so we are not tempted to overspend on the joint account. We each have personal current accounts, savings accounts and the dcs have saving accounts too.

We put £2400 in each month
£1200 mortgage
£200 council tax
£250 utilities
£60 insurance
£100 dcs savings
£80 house maintenance account
=£500 ish for everything else. (I try to keep the food shop to £80ish per week so school uniform/ school shoes/some after school clubs can come out of this pot)

Our bank text us the balance every week so we can top up as necessary.

I do most of my grocery shopping on line. That way I can look at what I have spent and take things out of the trolley before I check out if I feel I have paid too much.

Also I am a voucher queen. We rarely go out anywhere without having a discount voucher. I never make a big purchase without doing lots of research and finding the best price.

My bank could help by allowing me to categorise my spending on cards then produce a chart of what I have spent where so I could compare it each month and also decide during the month where I can make savings.

We don't do spreadsheets or proper budgets but I make an effort to save money whenever I can so I'll shop around and take advantage of special offers, promotions and sales.
The banks could really help everyone by offering a fair level of interest on savings.

I think im good at budgeting, i can set my self to a budget n take a small amount with me when i go shopping. That way i limit my spending to essential things. Where as my husband doesn't like too much budgeting, i think he feels im too controlling when i explain to him to budget his spending. We are opposites when it comes to money. But we both suffer when we run out of money for daily spending and sometimes cant pay bills on time, n some direct debits go on or around the date they give u. That way your not sure the exact date the money will go out of your account n they charge u £8 per day. Thats too much, n if u miss credit card payment its £12 charge.

I wish I was more organised but I'm not. It works though. Me and dp have separate accounts because we've been together so long and never really though to merge them. We both have set things we pay for and this has changed as I've been on maternity leave. Then whatever is left we use for dd and ds on the way, food shopping and days out. We just check out balance regularly and rein it in if we need to.

We have a joint credit card but no joint account. MrNC pays the mortgage and nursery fees, I pay the credit card and other bills each month. If the credit card bill is large, then we discuss who has money to pay it. Currently spending a lot on building work so we keep assessing all our money against all the costs.

I use a spreadsheet to keep track of all regular income/outgoings. Not only is it really helpful for day-to-day budgeting, but it helps to highlight where savings could be made e.g. shopping around for utilities, insurance etc.

I also run three separate accounts - one for direct debits/bills, one for disposable income, and one for savings.

Making assumptions here- but I don't see how two girls who only work part time can pay rent/mortgage, bills such as electricity, gas and council tax, buy their groceries and be have money for property matienance, getting to/from work/school with enough money to have a life themselves. Technically the 16 year old is still a child and I imagine her school would have something to say about it?!

They can be as sensible as can be- but having the responsibilities of living alone, paying bills and getting around on your own two feet is different to deciding not to drink frosty jacks down the park on a Saturday night.

And what sort of man picks a new woman over his daughters?? 16 or 60- if a partner wasn't accepting of my child(ren) they would kicked to the curb.

While I agree with what you're saying, thedrunkenduck , I think you may have posted on the wrong thread. If you win the £200 I will be very jealous.

We don't "officially" budget with spreadsheets or so, but we do pay attention to our spendings. All bills go from my bank account and I have arranged that they are all taken by direct debit around the same time, so it's easier to know when we need what amount of money in the account. We do our main weekly shops at Aldi's to not be thrown into the big offer selection of ASDA and the likes, Aldi has pretty good value and great items there! Sometimes we do top-up shops at Sainsbury's.
I re-sell unused items of our household to make some "disposable money". Be it child toys that are in good condition but aren't used anymore, be it things that I have bought for myself and don't use anymore.
Recently my phone contract has run out and I have swapped to PAYG to keep the monthly costs down. We roughly spend the same amount every month which leaves us a bit of pocket money for the fun things!

Budgeting is hard because life is unpredictable.
I use catalogue shopping for major items such as sofa, new hoover, etc. so that the cost can be spread over several months.
I have a fixed price for the weekly food shop and pay as many bills as I can by direct debit to avoid having shock large bills, this goes for oil, electricity, car insurance, etc.
I use short-term loans when something large and unexpected crops up, which seems to happen once or twice a year, such as big car repair job / large deposit for rent if moving house and then budget to squeeze down my other costs for a few months to try to pay this back asap.
Having a rigid budget where every penny is accounted for in advance is very dull so I always try to have a proportion of my income earmarked for random stuff, e.g. car boot sale purchases or new household items or a day-trip or meal out.

I have childcare vouchers going out of my wages which doesn't cover it all but helps. These days I've very careful with money and extra cash from overtime is what get used for treats.
Banks can't make things any easier for me but if they stopped paying huge bonuses I may begin to trust them a tiny bit.