What kind of system do you have for managing your personal budget?

letsallgotothe · 23-03-2011 11:42PM #1

This is what i do

-earn money from job (take home money only obviously since gross is taxed so much these days as well as with other new tax rises)
-immediately pay all essential bills like esb, gas and broadband, food etc
-money left from this goes into bank account or is spent on something non essential like clothes or something i dont really need but would like to have.

Can anyone see any ways i can improve my money management?

NIMAN · 24-03-2011 08:45AM

Broadband is not an essential bill, its a luxury.

I guess you posted because you are struggling financially (you don't really say), but your line about buying things that you don't really need but would like hints at this.

Perhaps don't buy things you don't need?

Mort5000 · 24-03-2011 01:49PM

Start your day and write down the balance in your wallet and current account.
At the end of each day, write it down again, including all your expenses for the day.
Do this for 30-60 days and then review.

You might spot something that is chewing up loads of money that you don't really think about.

Shop around on your ESB and Bord Gais. BG are offering good rates for electricity if you're already getting gas from them.

If you're using the bus / luas, see if you can get weekly / monthly tickets at an improved rate.

Cookie_Monster · 24-03-2011 02:17PM

monthly budget on excel

record everything you get in and out and put in expected costs etc
rather than record all discretionary spending if you do not want to make sure you set a budget per week or similar and stick to it. If you go over, make sure you spend less the next week etc

ensure you payslip is 100% every month without fail (I'm always amazed at people who do not do thing considering how frequently mine has been wrong in every job I've ever had)

wmpdd3 · 25-03-2011 02:02AM

Spreadsheet on excel. I worked how much all my bills come to and i pay the them the same amonut monthly. They are on dd but they are paid before the dd is due. I spend the same amonut to cash every week. I have car ins and tax on spreadsheet so i have the money for the the week before. If i didnt have this i'd be in jail for my debts while i was on maternity leave.

NIMAN · 25-03-2011 08:53AM

Number 1 rule which few people abide by these days, is DO NOT SPEND more than you bring in.

Ask yourself do you really need that night out, that cinema ticket, that takeaway, that new pair of jeans, that DVD.

coylemj · 25-03-2011 04:22PM

Free Banking if your a/c was in credit was a godsend for me, it made me micromanage my current a/c to make sure that I was aware of every bill and direct debit well in advance so that I stayed in credit, even on some occasions by just a few cents.

To be fair to BOI though, if the a/c goes into the red because of a DD and the next transaction puts it back in the black, they forgive you so I haven't paid bank charges for several years now. The real big benefit however is that I am now totally on top of my income and expenditure.

I have debits and credits columns in an Excel spreadsheet, I get all my utility bills electronically so the minute I get an e-mail with a notification I check to see whether it will be debited in this pay period or the next. I have two sections in the spreadsheet, one for this pay period and on the other side of the page is the next pay period. I add the utility amount to the appropriate section so I can track my outgoings for this month and next month, the same applies to my credit card bills, I keep track of what I've spent this month so on the date the CC company do their billing run I know exactly what my bill will be.

The only things that catch me out are annual charges that come out of the blue like the Govt. levies on credit cards and ATM cards, otherwise I know my income and expenditure for this month and next month down to the last cent, this allows me to see how much cash I have to spend for the next few weeks.

For big annual charges like car & home insurance, car tax, and VHI, I have a flat amount debited via standing order on pay day from my bank a/c to an a/c in the building society, this a/c always contains enough money to pay any of these annual bills so I have spread the costs of these over the 12 months of the year.

Kennie1 · 25-03-2011 08:32PM

I have two accounts as I get paid monthly. A/C 1 is the account which my salary is paid into, I have a cheque book for this account and all my DD are paid out of this account, I also have a weekly S/O paid into A/C 2 which I have a debt card for, this is the account that I use for my day to day living expences. If I need to save for something I reduce the weekly S/O accordingly. As previous posts stated you need to examin your spending over a two month period and then look at what you can cut out and then look at items that you can reduce by a certain percentage such as electricity Gas etc. Hope this helps.

IpreDictDeatH · 26-03-2011 10:43AM

First thing to do is to do up a balance sheet. List of incomings in one column and outgoings in the other. This will show you if your spending more than your making. Then you decide what you can cut from the outgoings. Then decide what you wana do with that extra cash. Save, or whatever. Basically you just need to organise your cash flow on paper, write it down,understand it.

IpreDictDeatH · 26-03-2011 10:45AM

Kennie1 wrote: »

I have two accounts as I get paid monthly. A/C 1 is the account which my salary is paid into, I have a cheque book for this account and all my DD are paid out of this account, I also have a weekly S/O paid into A/C 2 which I have a debt card for, this is the account that I use for my day to day living expences. If I need to save for something I reduce the weekly S/O accordingly. As previous posts stated you need to examin your spending over a two month period and then look at what you can cut out and then look at items that you can reduce by a certain percentage such as electricity Gas etc. Hope this helps.

I like the idea of two accounts. Whats the pro's of it though? Is it just a means of physically seperating your money so that its clear to you what you can spend? The other option is to mentally give yourself a weekly limit for personal spending.

AnnaStezia · 26-03-2011 03:18PM

For a while we used MONEY 99 which came as part of the Works Suite with Windows 98.

We entered absolutely everything in the accounts. When you have your own figures screaming back at you from the screen it can be very sobering to realise where the money drains off...

NIMAN · 26-03-2011 05:31PM

Another good tip, which I should adhere to myself more often, is try not to end up buying food which is thrown out.

Its amazing how much money is wasted this way. And with the price of food these days, there is big savings to be made.
Always have a list if you are going to the supermarket. I never used to use one, and bought mostly stuff I didn't go out for, but since I started using the list I simply go and get each item, and rarely put other things into the basket. The shop also takes half the time it used to.

eclectichoney · 27-03-2011 09:59AM

I find Pearbudget really good - it's a free Excel spreadsheet:

https://www.pearbudget.com/spreadsheet

filmbuffboy · 27-03-2011 12:05PM

eclectichoney wrote: »

I find Pearbudget really good - it's a free Excel spreadsheet:

https://www.pearbudget.com/spreadsheet

thanks! ust downloaded it there and its great. so clear and easy to use. you can really see where your money is going

Kennie1 · 27-03-2011 06:27PM

IpreDictDeatH wrote: »

I like the idea of two accounts. Whats the pro's of it though? Is it just a means of physically seperating your money so that its clear to you what you can spend? The other option is to mentally give yourself a weekly limit for personal spending.

Just for pure budgeting it stops me from over spending and lets me budget for annual bills like car insurance/tax and so on, so i can get the max savings. Tried the mental option for years but never worked for me.

theofficepest2 · 29-03-2011 11:42AM

you post asking a fair question, the first reply is someone giving out to you because they reckon broadband is a luxxxxury, brilliant

The best thing to improve your money management isn't doing a budget, a budget is pretty pointless in my experience to manage personal finance, you already know your income, so use something like quicken (costs 50-60 bucks) to track where you spend money. You could do it in excel, but this categorises your spending and is just easier.

Then after a couple of months once you see you are spending too much on say eating out or shoes, you can cut back on these if you require, thus saving money

As an example, say you eat out twice a week, at 50 quid a pop, that's about 5000 a year, you could save yourself 2500 a year by only eating out once a week

If you try to say create a budget, it's just going to get broken, and you at least need something as a basis which means you need to do the step above to make it someway accurate

Oh yeah and quicken does allow you to enter fixed bills like rent and mortage on a weekly/monthly basis, but it's hard to save money on these items

lilmissmoo · 30-03-2011 12:12PM

letsallgotothe wrote: »

This is what i do

-earn money from job (take home money only obviously since gross is taxed so much these days as well as with other new tax rises)
-immediately pay all essential bills like esb, gas and broadband, food etc
-money left from this goes into bank account or is spent on something non essential like clothes or something i dont really need but would like to have.

Can anyone see any ways i can improve my money management?

Hi Letsallgotothe,

I use a budgeting tool online, its free and it just helps me to plan my monthly spends to make sure that I allow enough of my budget to cover all of my bills/essentials.

www.moneyudoo.ie

Hope it helps!

Lilmiss

letsallgotothe · 01-04-2011 02:10PM

i know its a american only service but does anyone here in ireland use mint.com?

Rebel1977 · 02-04-2011 09:38PM

get some good apps also if u have a apple device

corblimey · 02-04-2011 09:59PM

I tried out several different online and offline apps before I just made up my own in Excel. Been using it for just over a year now and the difference between my finances now and then are astonishing. Nothing major, but being able to see my bank balance shrink and my grocery spend balloon from day to day really showed me where I could make some changes.

Moved my gas to flogas, my leccy to bord gais, got cheaper quotes on all insurances, stopped buying crap from eBay and started saving, etc etc etc. All normal budgetting responses, but until I laid it all out in a spreadsheet, it was a case of 'well I'm earning more than I'm spending, just about, so I'm good'.

ETA: I've also got 2 accounts, one my wages go into and then I have a standing order to my main account where all my bills and d/d come from. To be honest, I'm not sure having 2 accounts has made any difference to my budgetting, and if both of them weren't fee free, I'd probably close one tomorrow.

dellas1979 · 03-04-2011 10:31AM

I have 4 accounts:
1 savings account with Rabo (lump sum just sitting in there - never touch/look at it)
1 AIB savings account that I put a large chunk of my salary into every month (rarely touch this - just got interest the other day and a bonus for not touching it all year)
1 AIB savings account that I put a small chunk of my salary into - I call it my "Unemployment fund" (incase this ever happened!) or "Need money for a rainy day".
1 current account that I get paid into, and pay bills out of.

I just find it easier than having 1 current account/1 savings account. I like managing my money, and knowing exactly what is where and if I put X amount in over 6 months, I can buy this or do that etc. I also dont believe in leaving large amounts of money in current accounts in case of fraud.

jamesbrond · 03-04-2011 10:46AM

Me .....
- Get paid. Max pension contribution is taken out (until the tax relief is goes down. Then thats all going to savings as well). Move 50% of my salary to savings and investments.

- Leave 50% in current account for bills, mortgage, insurance, spending etc. All done by DD.

Mrs .....
- Get paid. Max pension contribution is taken out (until the tax relief is goes down. Then thats going to savings as well). Move 100% of her salary to savings and investments.

- When we want a holiday or some new toys for me

we just take it out of the 50% salary that went into my savings. Usually end up with 25% of my salary not spent at the end of the year. We never ever touch the other halfs salary.

We werent struggling but we used to spend a lot of what we had saved, but did a rework on our spending since the tax increases and now we get exactly the same life style, but for far less money spent.

One example being that for one of our hols we used to always take a boat on the shannon for 2 weeks in the summer. We decided to look at what we could get in the uk or france for 2 weeks and we can get the same thing, nicer weather, better facilities, better boats for half the price incl flights or ferry in France or the UK.

Another being that we never shopped around for banking, insurance or anything like that. Now we do and save literally thousands a year, just from shopping around.

And yet another being that we werent claiming most of the tax credits we can claim, but now we are.

THe moral of the story - Even if you think you are ok, you can still save more, without any hit to lifestyle, just by looking at your finances.

Pablo Sanchez · 03-04-2011 03:29PM

Get paid, pay utilities online immediatly, if your electric is payable bi monthly then estimate what one month would cost and pay it in, things that need to be paid via Direct Debit should be changed to the date you get paid, try and lodge some money online to a savings account, the money you have left over is yours to spend, divide the amount by the number of days till you get paid again and bingo you know exactly how much you can spend in a day/week.

What kind of system do you have for managing your personal budget?

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