Create a budget and stick to it

Sticking to a detailed budget has never been my strong point but I seem to have come to a happy compromise with myself about weekly spending on food and non-essentials. What with holidays and Christmas I’ve not been saving much the past couple of months and that is due to continue with some big expenses coming up.

I also think I’ve had a bit of a change in outlook when it comes to balancing daily pleasures against savings in the bank, and now that I have a decent buffer set aside I feel better about letting myself have things that are going to improve the quality of my day-to-day life and especially encourage my creativity.

So the main thing now is to make sure I am not wasting money, and to live within my income over the long term.

a success this month! I think I have found a system I can work with!

Right, have re-done the bills budget and it was a bit more than I was giving it, but not loads more, and I will jiggle it a bit more if the whole piano thing worked out. I also worked out how much of a raise I will need to get back to my original/ideal level of monthly savings.

I whacked the lump I was saving in case I had to go to Japan for that interview into savings at last, and it’s good to see some healthy numbers (4 months’ worth expenses now) in that side of it.

I have started again with giving myself twice-weekly allowances and already managed to snowflake some bits so I am feeling good about that and hoping to keep random spending to a minimum next month, considering the commitments I already have…

Well I have had the best month I think I’ve ever had as far as controlling the budget is concerned! On the spending sheet I am just within budget, which means two things:

1) I am seriously hard-pushed to squeeze anything at all extra out of the budget as it is now. I only had two really big expenses and they were both effectively covered by birthday money so if I can’t do it this month I’m not sure I ever will.
2) There is some discrepancy between the spreadsheet and the bank, as I was short on the bank side but within budget on the spreadsheet. This either means I’m forgetting to put things on the spreadsheet, or, more likely, my bills have gone up and I’m not allowing enough for them any more.

I am majorly pleased with myself for at least being within budget on the spreadsheet, I don’t think I missed anything and this is the first month I’ve ever managed it!! But I think the reality is that it’s just not going to be possible to save as much as I was hoping each month – that’s no huge tragedy, it just means saving at a slightly slower rate, but I need to re-set the budget so it’s achievable, otherwise I’ll give up halfway through the month and end up spending half what I could have saved just through self-fulfilling defeatism!

And the good news is that our performance reviews are coming round early this year, so hopefully come September my salary will cover the original amount of savings. I am also thinking about renting a piano from next month so now is a good time to see if it’s viable and what impact it’ll have on my savings.

Next things to do:
1) review bills budget to match reality!
2) find out about pianos!!
3) come up with a revised budget for the next 3 months

Well it’s payday tomorrow hoorah!
Japan ended up making quite a big dent in what I was hoping to save this month – the majority of that was stuff (shoes, tickets, hotel) made necessary by the agency meeting, and I spent a bit on new clothes, neither of which I regret, but there was a little superfluous departure-lounge book-binging which could have been avoided. But hey it’s a holiday.

I’m compensating by not having a big birthday party (I just can’t face one after being away and then being sick, and there are exciting enough plans afoot as it is!!) and am hoping to make up at least half the difference by banking all my birthday money, possibly minus tent. So at least the damage will be minimal. I’ve also managed to snowflake a few pounds so I will leave that to mount up and either treat myself to something I wouldn’t have had otherwise, or add it to savings.

All that said, the important thing is that I have passed the point in savings where, assuming I work my notice period, I will have more than the target maximum amount that the move back to Japan is estimated to cost, and that is a great feeling.

I feel that I am moving into a new phase of embracing a lot of new hobbies/interests/passions that don’t cost much money – painting, writing, piano, camping being four off the top of my head. I would love for this to translate into being able to save more at the end of each month, but looking at the budget as it is I still don’t see a lot of wiggle-room – it would just be nice if it ended up that way. I definitely feel like I am wasting less money though.

Have set up my monthly budgets through to July so that I can track the savings – there is quite a lot going towards the Japan trip this month and next and I wanted to see in real live spreadsheets that my planning has been correct. It all looks fine and it’s good motivation to stick to each month’s budget as I can see it mounting up in the long term. I really wish I had hit on this method earlier!

Having said that I am going to be over this month, but hopefully not by too much.

I was doing so so well this month and then the past 10 days have just been awful! Admittedly I had a big weekend with lots of costs last week but I probably could have still kept almost to budget if I hadn’t lost my head. Before I knew it there I was spending 15 quid on notebooks (oooh but they’re great!) and eating almost every meal out! So I will pay the price, and this in spite of the council tax break. Argh. Will I ever learn?

Anyway March should be better, I have two family weekends and one weekend with a couple who are fairly restrained, so my social costs shouldn’t be too high. Arrrgh.

if I do actually manage to stick to my budget this month (it’s gonna be tight because there’s a lot going on but I will try to compensate in other areas) then I should be rewarded by having more in the bank to transfer at the end of the month than usual, as some of the bills knock off from February. Also will be spending less in the coming months on heating so that should make a bit of a difference.

It would be awesome to be able to have that extra amount and actually put it away or spend it on new clothes or something – rather than putting just the normal away but knowing I’d cheated. Definitely something to work for!

Well it’s payday on Friday and I am coming in under budget! So hopefully I won’t go crazy the next few days…

My discretionary portion was swallowed up by two lots of birthday presents, the party on Friday (I must never volunteer to buy a round again!!) but my buying-snacks-and-lunches portion was fairly low, so I’m pleased with that. I underspent on everything else, particularly grocery shopping – which is great seeing as I’ve been making a lot more of my food this month than usual. Must be all that delicate eating ;)

Either way I should have enough to get at least one of my weight-loss-milestone treats, will have to make an executive decision about the other two ;) This new system makes it much easier to see where the money is going and how much is left, and knowing I’d have some left at the end to get something special has been a bit incentive not to splash out.

Having had this goal all of last year I didn’t actually embrace the spirit of it – having a budget that sets a limit on how much I can spend rather than just watching the money flow away through my pretty spreadsheet.

• food shopping
• meals out with friends
• coffee etc
• bills (not paid directly from the bank – basically electricty and mobile phone) plus necessities (shampoo etc)
• discretionary spending – which is to cover all take-out food, lunches bought rather than made, presents, travel and any extra socialising. The idea is to focus on this category by realising that spending less on lunches, for example, will mean I have more to spend on clothes, or books, or art supplies, or whatever.

I anticipate that for a while my discretionary budget will be eaten up by over-spill from the other categories, which is ok as I’ll still be able to save as much as I want; but as I settle in with it I hope it’ll motivate me to stop pointless impulse buys and put that money towards more meaningful treats and presents for myself.

The other categories are quite strict but that reflects that I don’t think I need to spend as much as I regularly do. If it’s really not working out I’ll just have to accept that I won’t be able to save at the rate I want to.

As we get towards March/April a lot of the direct debits fall off for a couple of months (council tax and so on) so if I stay within this budget I’ll be able to use that towards a trip somewhere or something.