Managing your money

D5T

D5T

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Joined
13 Feb 2009
Posts
363
Location
Surrey
Just wondering if people have any good tips about how they manage their finances.

It's not something I great with & so I'd like to address it.

Do most have a monthly set budget for certain items or is it more like just careful purchases?
 
I just have an excel spreadsheet on with all my outgoings and incomings on. Really easy to see what I have left and how much crap I have spent each month.
 
I work out how much will definitely go out each month on rent, mobile phone, etc (all the fixed bills). Then I take a guess at other big expenses like food and work out how much will be left. As long as my food and other bills remain around what I budgeted I should be fine to spend or save any other disposable income.

(I'm an Accountant so I'm anal about my money :p)
 
if you put your wages and any incomings in one column, all out goings in another you can see what you're left with at the end of each week/month to spend.

Another thing that can open your eyes is to have a money diary, where you put down everything you spend, even 35p for a paper, or 60p for a can of coke. You might be suprised at the things you buy when you look back in the diary
 
The diary suggestion will probably appall me - a good thing though. Bit of a wakeup call. I'm not terrible but just want to be banking more than I do now for future.
 
Its pretty basic but I have a spreadsheet for each month. The top of the sheet my wage is entered, then my direct debits for that month and there will be a total left each month. I then add each individual thing I spend onto the spreadsheet so I have a clear total of how much £££ I have left each month.

Quite simple but affective.
 
have 2 bank accounts, make sure all your bills are set to one account, and pay your wages into into it. Then transfer what will be left (wages - bills) into your other one, and enjoy.

At some point though (It happens to us all) your financial management becomes the remit of your other half, and you then have 'pocket money'.
 
I find that if i take out a set amout of cash at the start of the week say £70 (£10 a day) and leave my debit card at home it greatly curbs any impulse spending. Spent all your money by thursday then too bad no lunch for you on Friday :)
 
I use a spreadsheet.

It's simple - just break your income/costs into fixed and non-fixed each month. That them provides the basic cashflow. I then repeat each month for a year and that gives me a reasonable picture.

I break a utility bill into fixed and non-fixed, so for example a virgin monthly contract cost would be fixed but I would maintain a track of the additional cost of calls to give an average and place that value into the non-fixed for each month going forward.
There are things such as car servicing etc that I'd put as non-fixed but I would estimate, say £500, for the service and add it to a future month when it's due etc. I can then see if I need to save before I get to that month.

I then take the actual cashflow and update each month as I go and update any forecast numbers if the numbers are not reflecting reality.

Additionally you should look at the outgoings and cost cut if required (find a better deal etc). By considering a year rather than each month as it comes you tend to think about this sort of thing as you see the savings.

So if you have a row for each type of expense, such as mobile phone etc, you can make a pie chart of your costs very easily which helps to show the costs over a year for example.

All that text is confusing, here's an example layout as PDF

What's available is basically what you have available if you need to spend.
 
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I worked out how much i have outgoing in the way of Mortgage, bills etc, and then estimate what i need to buy (food etc) for the month.

When i get paid, i wait for my bills to go out, see how much is left and then put a lump into savings. Whats left i use for food shopping, and anything else i want/need.
 
I am a bargain hunter at the best so try to spend as little as poss ;)

I get paid on 25th of every month so on the 24th I put whatevers left in savings/credit card.

BB x
 
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