Starting this month, lets discuss all our budgeting questions and ideas here.
Lets help each other get our monthly or quarterly budgets sorted , sometimes it can be hard to think up of new ways to do things , when we are very used to doing things a certain way .. however change is quite a positive thing and seeing others doing things differently can motivate us to change into the better .
I hope this will help many sisters and brothers out there going through the dillema of dealing with the finances.
First and foremost step is to determine the key monthly outgoings like:
Mortgage, rent, gas bills, water and electricity bills, phone bills, internet bills
Groceries, transport, school fees
clothes, laundry bills etc etc ..
Its a freaking long list .. what basic divisions have you got to make the process easier?
I have a spreadsheet in which I add all my monthly outgoings and incomings. Usually once a week or every two weeks I will log into my online account, see what's been going in/out and add it to my spreadsheet. For a given month, there is one section for rent + household bills + petrol, another for groceries, another section for pet related expenses, and then everything else is variable so that goes in a continuous list separated by week. So you can just quickly select those rows and can see what the total is i.e. how much you are spending on non-essentials.
Question is do you do a separate budgeting for some factors like Laundry/ household decoration/ house upkeep etc? I mean do you dedicate some chunk of money for this stuff or do you just add the expenses as they come along ?
I don't know what you mean by laundry? Since we're just renting at the moment, separate house budgeting is not something I do.
I think if you are renovating, then you should set aside a certain amount. But for things like soft furnishings, kitchen items, decoration pieces... for me they would just just go along with the variable stuff. So if one month I was buying a bit more of that kind of stuff, I personally would restrict spending elsewhere, for example on clothing.
Obviously, it depends what your situation in. I'm trying to increase my savings so that's how I look at it.
^^ Stoppit that's such a good idea. Maintaing a spreadsheet. Lately we just have no idea where our money comes and goes. We used to watch our monthly statement to make sure we are saving a lot but now even when we do watch it, we are unable to save much :( I've noticed our personal expenses have gone up so that spreadsheet idea is really good to keep things in line.
stoppit would it be possible for you to share your spreadsheet template with us here. Of course without any numbers.
I have tried micro managing money since i came to canada but cant seem to do it. I used to do the envelope system back home and we had no credit card so we were on top of our game.
u guys do grocery weekly?it gets too expensive but i have no other option....
and do u buy baby's stuff e.g diapers, wipes etc weekly or monthly?
how much do u keep for ur baby from monthly income?
I take cash out once a week and try and manage through that.. using a card "credit" is so bad
also I have a post office savings account which I have "lost" the pin for and whenever I am at the Post office, I put whatever cash change I have in there, and forgotten about it..
I have saved up a fair bit that I can one day spend in hard times
Stoppit the spreadsheet is a great idea, unfortunatley I never keep it upto date :(
Guys, mine is actually very simple. I made it like 10 years ago but it works for me. At the end of every month, I copy that month and insert it in rows above so the whole thing is a continuous sheet with the most recent month at the top. I just need to enter what the payment was for, amount in either 'out' or 'in' column and then it automatically adds up that column and gives you the bottom of that section. Also at the bottom there is the balance between those two for that month... so I can quickly see how much I have actually spent in the given month. At the top of the section, along with the date period, is the total account balance (this should tally with the end of month account balance on my online account).
I have to say, I use my debit card where ever I can. I only keep £10 in my wallet for lunch/snacks etc. I know it seems like you take more care when you have a limited amount of cash but for me it's not the case because the 'left over' change always just gets spent here and there and you don't know where it has gone.
I do use my credit card occasionally but more for safety and it's always paid off before the month end.