J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

One of my new years resolutions is to get better with money, wasn't that bad but on it like a rash this year, every direct debit, not wasting anything, getting the best deal etc

Just wondering how you lot manage your money, I am using a spreadsheet at the moment but am aware there are better ways to do it, am trying to predict spending over the year, things like Car tax etc rather than just waiting for the bills to arrive and thinking I have spare money when I haven't.

I think losing most of the Child Benefit motivated this, have already save a few quid moving electricity/gas suppliers, shopping around harder for car insurance etc.

Next job is curtail the wife's grocery shopping, £170 - £200 some weeks, we end up buying stuff like bagged salad for £150 that nobody eats or £2 on some pineapple chunks in a little plastic tray, can get a tin for 30p, don't get it, tastes more or less the same.

sovietspybob

iTrader: (3)

As i work for an agency i have a spreadsheet that works out my money to the penny - calculates tax, NI, holiday pay etc.

I regularly shop around as soon as anythings out of its 'fixed period' stuff like gas, electric, house insurance etc.

One of the biggest differences we've noticed is shopping at Aldi instead of Tesco - we used to spend about 120-150 each time we went to Tesco and now about 70 in Aldi. We've found the food to be better quality too, especially the fresh stuff so we don't eat as much crap.

Miniman

iTrader: (2)

Brave man, I say. Several items on our shopping list I have questioned in the past. This usually ends up with me in the dog house (again).

Tidgy

my bills are pretty much constant bar a few quid here and there on phone bill etc so easy for me. Pay all the bills then whats left is party time lol

Steve vRS

Kids clubs are a big spend that chips away at the funds each month.

They cost a fortune!

Swimming Club
Tennis Club
Guitar lessons
Stage School
Kids Bootcamp
Cricket
Gymnastics

Steve

Spec'c'57

iTrader: (1)

Wifey deals with it all, i transfer X amount every week into the joint account, + a small amount into the 'Holiday' account, the rest is MINE....

Osimabu

iTrader: (2)

+1 for Aldi. Try their ready to drink coffees if you usually like the branded ones. They're great, and only 59p.

And don't forget Iceland and Farm Foods. You might not get the range of Tescos, but the quality is fine.

Being "fiscally aware", I'm presently conducting a one year experiment to see how much I can get from a scrap yard for weighing in all our used household steel and aluminium (ie tin cans, beer cans & foil dishes, etc) rather than putting it in our council recycling bin. I'll know the result in November. I'm not that optimistic, but it's keeping me amused.

Dr Hu

Just had an Aldi open in our Home town, previously only had a Sainsburys.

Aldi Cucumber - 39p
Sainsbury Cucumber - 79p

It's a fecking cucumber!

You do the math.....

Sainsbury's must be sh1tting it where we are!

ReallyReallyGoodMeat

Is the cucumber half as big?

specialx

Another Vote for Aldi, I do laugh at the aldi snobbery I see on here at times and in most cases you can tell the person has never been.

The fresh food kicks tesco out of the water for both price and quality, their cooked meats again are great (mostly german) yogurts crisps beer all at good prices.

As said above when you are getting 4 bags of shopping at tesco for £120 and 7 at aldi for £70 it really is a no brainer.



Tesco = Convenience but you pay well over the odds for it for example Warbatons bread at Tesco £1.49 the same Loaf at Farmfoods is 99p! WTF!

cookstar

iTrader: (6)

Jesus, no wonder you're skint.

legb4rsk

I am absolutely rubbish with money.I had a very good job so this wasn't so much a problem.I just lived day to day without any real financial planning.

Anyhow,I ended up divorced & the ex & the kids get the house.
I end up losing about + 200k in equity & paying towards the kids.
I get myself a big mortgage to pay for my new place.
A few years latter I lose my job...........illness & stress(any wonder!)

So the threat of losing my home & having very little to live on acted as a massive wake-up call.I am getting on a bit so the chances of getting back into my line of work where slim too none & the stress was killing me according to the doctor.

So I am now living happily on peanuts.I am now managing on a fraction of my previous income & it amazes me how much I must have wasted over the years I could have probably afforded another house. One of the biggest upsets was telling the kids that I was no longer part of bank of Dad.

The plus side is they took it in their stride & have all done well & worked their way through Uni...........I now have a much better understanding of the value of money & how family & friendships are much more important,so being poor may have some other benefits.

Graz

I used to use Quicken home accounting software, don't think it's available any more though or MS Money which was the other alternative.

It basically entailed entering every transaction into the program and categorising it. You could then get it to generate reports as to where all your money went (mostly on the Scoob back then ).

The missus used to give me stick about how **** I was about it all and I realised that life was too short so gave up on it. Now days I just monitor the accounts to make sure we aren't about to go into the red anywhere and that the mortgage will get paid. I'm sure in this day and age there must be a smartphone app to simplify such things?

I too should make more of an effort, I switched our gas/elec a few years back and made a saving but I probably should have done so again by now to get a better deal. Our mortgage went onto SVR once our fix was up, at the time it was useful to stick with it as we then took out some further borrowing with them for an extension. It's been done a while now though so should probably switch that to someone else.

hodgy0_2

quite a good budgeting template spreadsheet

available for download here

http://www.dunfermline.com/help/budget-planner.aspx

ScoobySteve69

iTrader: (13)

I never worry about money tbh. I never even noticed the `recession`. It`s great not sharing my house with a money grabbing bint anymore...and that`s how it`ll stay

ChrisB

I still use MS Money - MS made the last version available for download when they stopped developing it (here). Takes 5 or 10 minutes a week to whack in transactions and see how much you've got mugged for when filling up your car this week.

hill79

I've always found it difficult managing money, but I found checking the bank account every morning and looking at what's gone out the previous day, how much, who it was to etc. You quickly build a sense of where you're overspending and where you could cut back.

We've just started shopping at Aldi too - most of their stuff is on par or better than our local Asda, but less expensive.

Home Bargains and the assorted pound shops are also good for some products - when a brand alters the packaging of a product and they have left over stock with the old design, it generally ends up there. Same stuff as the big supermarkets were selling a couple of weeks ago, but cheaper. A lot of people still have issues going in places like that... I've no idea why really, who doesn't like saving money?

Ant

The best way to do the food shopping, our tesco has a click and collect so we know how much it's going to be.

As that's what can make it expensive just chucking things in the trolley without really knowing how much you've spent.

ScoobySteve69

iTrader: (13)

Because they`re full of dole wallers and old people who smell of p1ss

lordharding

iTrader: (1)

I have been good with money or over the years ( or maybe just tight )
Fixed direct debits for
Electric / gas duel supply maximum discount and check switch every year if required
Coal is expensive but we get logs free which helps
Water I'm on old rateable value rather ten meter might save a bit but we use a lot watering the garden / pressure washing the property and 3 cars cleaned every week

Council tax DD can't save on that

bT pay yearly in advance to save £50 Then make 2 local calls a month
18185 for the rest of my calls to Cebu / USA / Canada /Australia
Skype is now working well to the above countries

Broadband a bit dear through bt though £19
Sky I have for the picture quality but every 2/3 years tell them I'm leaving /lost job etc so they out me on the £3 a month package for 6 months

House insurance paid once a year doing a couple of hours searches and now down to £141 for 500k building 50k contents

Life insurance don't bother (misses would survive with investments )
Car insurance through Gary
Direct debuts are under £600 per month (no morgage )
Food £300 a month fixed for the misses for food
We get all our meat from the localquality butcher
Fresh eggs from my mate who has hens
We use 2 staff 10% discount cards
We go shopping sometimes at 8pm when they are doing reductions
Mixture of Aldi /lidle /Asda /tesco for specials

Petrol at tesco £150 per month
Don't drink or smoke or gamble which saves a packet and I don't carry a lot of cash so it doesn't get frittered away always card so I can look at whether it was necessary

And the rest well I spend on the cars save 3/4k for our holidays and save the rest for retirement

mattvortex

All of the people who seem so concerned about there spending have paid off there mortgages ( iam not surprised, must have terrified them!) so rather than worry now about saving a quid or two here, why not live a liitle- after all, if you dont have a mortgage or rent to pay then you are in a very fortunate position to afford to live a little luxuriously- one guys on about saving a few pennies by looking for specials at 8pm!!
Guys, you really cant take it with you when you snuff it so go on, live a little . As for """saving for retirement", well the way you guys live, the state pension would be more than adequate for you!!

Of course, its good to have savings, which i have but if my main expense of rent/mortgage had gone then i sure as hell wouldnt be worrying about living so frugally, like you had nothing to spare each month!

Ellie*

I could do a lot better with money to be fair but I'm not really interested.

rossyboy

iTrader: (8)

I've used a spreadsheet for years that maps out the next 4-6 months income and spend.

I always know exactly what I've got, but sadly it does not help me save up money just for the sake of it. Helps me pay off the debt quicker though.

Yes, I have an accountancy qualification

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Dont get me wrong, I love spending money and am fully aware of the fact I cant spend it once dead, my thinking is that I get a bit of enjoyment out of getting the most for my money and not spending it on basics means there is more there to spend on big stuff.

I work with a lad who was moaning about money, a bit of a chat with him and he has saved a few quid by cancelling direct debits, things like mobile phone insurance on a phone he hasnt had for 6 years, I wonder how many people are skint and have stuff coming out like gym memberships for gyms they havent visited in three years, a girl I knew did just that, best part of two grand wasted.

Money makes money, I realised paying the car insurance monthly was costing me £41.68 this year in interest so come renewal I will insure I have the money put to one side ready, in the long run avoiding things like this will save me quite a few quid, just needs a bit of thought.

Being poor is expensive, it costs money through things like prepayment meters, expensive loans and not keeping up with stuff gets very expensive, lenders twsit the knife and going £10 overdrawn can cost you £100 very quickly in letters, the worst thing anyone can do is turn a blind eye to things getting out of control, ignoring letters thinking it will go away.

I want to get my kids into good habits, I havent always been careful, have ended up overdrawn etc, not massive but even a couple of grand is depressing, how people with tens of thousands of out of control debt sleep I dont know.

hodgy0_2

So very true

funkmasterjay

After getting myself in debt, I now have 2 bank accounts. I don't have any credit cards or overdrafts etc. just my mortgage.

I get paid in one account, I use a spreadsheet to work out what all my bills will be for the period between paydays. The rest of the funds go to my spending account.

I have been ok for the last 3 years. No savings, but I just buy company shares through my wages, do cancer research charity through wages, have life insurance and that's it.

J

lordharding

iTrader: (1)

It's a generation thing
I started on £25 a week and paid a tenner for bus fares and a fiver for dinners 30 years ago so had my hard times and if I met a bird who wanted 4 half lagers in a nightclub I would be skint
When I started work 100k in the bank interest would give you 10 k which meant you could retire and not work
Now you need 800k with current interest rates to give you enough to retire on
I like my holidays and toys and cars and when I got my redundancy 6 years ago deliberately took a job on half my previous as I knew more pressure would of put me in the graveyard and now in three years time I'm just going to work 2/3 days a week and survive on my savings and investments income ,that's my motivation for getting a loaf of bread at half price

I was brought up as a farmers son and my old father is the tightest man on this earth and uses the bath water to water his plants in the summer

ChrisB

I was ready a thread on the PlusNet customer forum earlier and somebody on there was moaning very loudly that the "free" router PN supply as standard on their "fibre" (FTTC) service wasn't very good. He'd therefore had to buy a new one but then said he was totally brasic (being unemployed) and already in debt.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

I rang the bank earlier, want to open some more savings accounts, not because I have vast amounts of savings, just so I can allocate money to "pots", makes it easier to track.

Investment fund
Child Benefit for when I have to give it back
Car fund 1 - Porsche
Car fund 2 - hive off money for VED, MOT and insurance, to avoid direct debit and only paying for six months VED
House Stuff, save for log burner


They seemed happy with this, no skin off their nose.

WRX_Dazza

My Tactic, on a monthly basis:-
1) Pay any bills that come in
2) Spunk the rest (life isn't a rehearsal !!)
i dont have any credit cards... if i cant afford to pay for it, then i dont get it !

i can see how software could help complicated households with kids though !
also, just to add i try and shop locally to help small businesses out. yes, your money doesn't go as far, but then i just cut out all the crap that we all buy !