Budgeting

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Titus said:
Just live as a minimalist. Shocked to see people including beers and shite like that in the routine weekly expenses - unless you have a problem or really enjoy it, sack it off for a while.
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I bought my first place when interest rates were 10% but never dreamed of sacking off beer because of money. Plenty of stuff can go first.
 


Harry Angstrom said:
I bought my first place when interest rates were 10% but never dreamed of sacking off beer because of money. Plenty of stuff can go first.
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Yeah but I was saying that based on context of the OP and getting some savings together.
 
phillips10 said:
Me and the mrs have just bought our first house, we've just sat and worked out how much money we have spare per month after bills, food, car etc... We are looking at having around £600 a month between us to use as disposable income, possibly a little bit more as we have rounded the bills up slightly higher than what we think they could be.

I'm panicking slightly as I don't think £300 a month each is a lot to have left over, especially when you have to factor in having to buy bloody Xmas presents etc... at this time of year.

How much disposable income to you tend to have left over per month?
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I think that seems decent.

I did it the other way, what do we need to earn to keep the roof over our heads, fed and lights on....the answer was £1,500 pm.

Any think left would be fine - but if life went tits up, between us, that’s what we need.

Do those sums, just out of interest...see if the answer is less scary.
 
Haven't read the entire thread but we started budgeting properly when the kids came along. As a loose rule we (and to a degree still do) budgeted £40 a day for the household after paying all the bills, the food shop, petrol etc.

Sounds like that is twice what you are budgeting, but there were (are) 4 of us, so suppose that could work

All I can say, after 15 years of home ownership is................everything costs more than you expect, and far more often than you expect
 
Have about £20 off nectar points off just grabbing random shit.
Saved a fortune on meercat meals etc.
Loads of cashback on amex.

daft thing is I done nowt like the above when we had nowt!
 
phillips10 said:
Bit of a shock going from paying £120 a month “board”
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F@@k Me!

I was paying more than double that twenty five years ago.

I think you've had it easy up to now - welcome to the real world. ;)
a1970man said:
Just a couple of bits and bobs
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Whenever Herself says this I die a little inside - one Christmas she bladdered nearly a Grand on 'bits and bobs'.
 
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Best thing we ever did was spend everything on a credit card and pay off each month. Can instantly see what your current spend for both of you is and is class for building credit score.
 
If you're trying to save money always put it into your savings account on the day you get paid. If you say you will put whatever you have left at the end of the month into savings you will find that you don't have anything left to save.
 
Goat Eyes said:
No need really.

Best advice is to have a number of different instant access savings accounts. Chuck a bit cash in each to cover car / house / incidentals etc.

Enjoy your new pad OP.
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dunno like back in the day I had a pad where i scribbled ins n outs so I knew roughly what I had to mesel.

no different to a spreadsheet I guess.

better than folk having no idea where theyre at, amazed at how many live like that.
 
WhoDrankAllTheBovril said:
If I were in your situation, I would be saving as much of that disposable income as possible every month and looking for ways to cut back on bills and unnecessary expenditure. Think - what happens when the mortgage interest rate goes up a few times. Speaking from experience.
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The lad needs to live. You can get zero percent on most large purchases these days.
 
PrisonBroken said:
Best thing we ever did was spend everything on a credit card and pay off each month. Can instantly see what your current spend for both of you is and is class for building credit score.
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It's actually a myth that paying credit card off in full builds your credit rating
 
robbied1 said:
It's actually a myth that paying credit card off in full builds your credit rating
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Not specifically paying it off in full but indirectly it can be beneficial.

Using it tends to lead to more available credit, and low outstanding balance as % of available credit tends to show you're not a huge risk.
 
mysticmackem said:
This ^^ Me and Mrs Mystic stopped buying each other presents years ago, just buy a card that's it. We still buy for any kids in the family, but once they are over 18 that stops. Saves a lot of money, time and bullshit. The times I've spent half pissed on Christmas eve scratching me ass outside shops in metro centre, wondering what the fuck to buy, are gladly long gone
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Xmas is a massive consumer con. Just agree with your family not to exchange anything but cards. We do this and the agreement between me and the other half is we buy ourselves something we really want, wrap it up and open each others on Xmas morning. Nice surprise, but for the other person!
 
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