The only budgeting method that works for my dollophead brain 🙃
I wanted to help someone like me so if you find yourself spending more than you have… this is the trick that helps me ❤️
At the end of the month, I check what money automatically came out of my account, ie subscriptions, rent, bills, direct debits, automatic debt payments, insurance … I then also check what upcoming payments that aren’t monthly are coming up for the next month- e.g. I know that in July I’m going to London for a concert and the hotel reservation has payment due early July— also there might be yearly subscriptions or quarterly ones that will come out so if you’re unsure, just a quick glance through statements will make sure you have no surprises — if you notice ones coming up in the next few months just note down the date to help future self.
Okay now you have all the recurring and automatic payments— add them all up. This is the total amount that should STAY in the account payments come out. I usually add a little bit of a buffer. For example, I live with my partner and we have individual accounts and pay for different bills but they usually end up around the same, but we work out what we owe each other every now and then. For me, the money that definitely needs to be in my account to not miss any payments is around £750 but I’ve added a buffer of £150 just in case. I get paid around £1800 a month after tax. That leaves £900.
When I get paid, I’m going to transfer £900 into another bank account. I still have credit card debt that I want to pay off and several things I’m saving for so I have different pots in the Monzo account. I’ve budgeted a daily “spending” budget of £400 for the month (not £400 a day lol, £400 split over 31 days of July, so I make it £403 in the pot so that equates to £13 a day). The rest I divide into various pots that are either savings (holiday pot, credit card pot, specific purchase I need pot) or specific spending pots that I don’t want in daily spending (petrol; pet food or treats, or field rental for my dog; gifts for birthdays, my yearly subscription for editing software ).
Then each day of the month I take £13 from the spending pot so it can be accessed with the debit card. Some days you’ll spend nothing …so can either choose to “spend” that days budget on the various saving pots (I.e sometimes I’ll have only spent £5 so I choose to keep £3 in the normal account but put £5 into one of the various pots I’m saving for - so you’re like “spending” on that item). Sometimes you’ll have to spend more, especially if you have an event earlier in the month where you want to go for a meal etc - in which case you can either choose to skip adding on certain days or work out the new average to budget from the remaining balance.
Then the night before your salary is due to come in, take any remaining balance leftover in the bill-paying bank account and put it in whatever pot you want - I.e if that’s £150 was still left over I could either choose to put it all to credit card or if I didn’t have debt maybe I would use the left overs every month to put towards Christmas-spending bills, or give to charity, put in those pots I mentioned earlier, whatever you want :-)
Though, I wouldn’t suggest adding leftover to the next month spending budget as i think it is healthier to try and stick to a regular budget so you don’t get used to spending more— otherwise when you have less the following month it will feel like a struggle!
This method kind of gamifies saving and makes spending more visual, and there’s not that anxiety that you’re spending money you don’t have.
Anyway I hope that helps someone like me, because I was really crap and maybe it will work for others too! Don’t want to gatekeep helpful advice.
amandla
pixelskylines
prguitarman
discoholicmusic
izzy806
gummygunk
