Budgeting...........

[mtjt25]

OK - I am hopeless in this area:hair: but am determind to get on top and improve next year

I know there have been threads on this before but I couldn't find the one with some of the info I wanted so hope you can help.

I have decided to open up a high interest online account for bills and then pay in a weekly amount which I know a lot of you do and it seems to work. I have listed below what I have included but feel like I am missing something? Please let me know if I have missed something you have on your lists?

Rates
Water
Gas
Electric
Home Phone
Mobile Phone
Home Insurance
Car Insurance
Car Rego x 2
Health Insurance
Christmas Fund


The other things I am including (but not in this acount) are:

Home Loan
Fuel
Groceries
Entertainment
Clothing

Thanks in advance!

[greengables]

Qn - are you putting your entertainment, fuel and clothing in another account? and how about your home loan?

We have just consolidated some debts etc. We used to just have everything in the same account and hence we overspent . Now we have:
homeloan which gets paid directly from our pay
living account which gets the rest of our $ into a separate account - linked to a card
savings account which is only accessible onlineother things we do:
auto direct paid for: internet, phone, rates, electricity and water
We salary sacrifice our cars and fuel expenses - so this comes from our tax free pay...

[mtjt25]

Thanks greengables - I wasn't planning on another account but maybe I should?

I think that my problem is also that it is all in one account so overspend a bit - we used to have the home loan go straight in but it was paid weekly and realistically when the interest rates went up we just couldn't afford to keep paying the extra payment each year but maybe another account would help.

I don't think we would be able to salary sacrifice our car??

[mysonroger]

land tax.....some states pay land tax.

budgeting is not my strong point, so i stay way away from it and leave it all to DH. i'll ask my DH , he's a whizz at this stuff.

[mysonroger]

another one, although might not apply, but getting your car serviced......we just got my car serviced for a cool $600. this happens at least once a year.

[mysonroger]

more possibilities

what about internet service.
or,
daycare

or birthdays.....i have a big family and this needs budgeting for. it includes mothers' day, fathers' day, etc...any present giving occasions

[mtjt25]

thanks mysonroger - We don't have land tax - it must be all in our rates but didn't think of car servicing - our last was a $1000 so def need to include that!

[mysonroger]

we're so lucky in WA. we get to pay land tax on each property, including vacant blocks of land. i even have to pay some water rate thingy on this vacant block, even though it s just a big sand dune.....:rolleyes:

[AbbyJ]

Hi :wave:,

We have our fortnightly "Pay" go into our credit card which we then use to pay the bills (reward points). We have done this for the last 7 or 8 years and find it works really well, we don't get much interest but that doesn't worry us. We constantly have anywhere between $1000 and $3000 in savings in that account and never pay any fees.

We then have an Excel spreadsheet which I update every few days or at least weekly, which accounts for every cent that we spend. Our current headings are:

Paid Weekly
Petrol
Groceries
Paid Fortnightly
Daycare
MBF
DS Bank Account
DD Bank Account
Paid Monthly
My Mobile Phone
Optus Internet
Nappies, Wipes & Powder
Swimming
Paid Quarterly
Rates
Electricity
Paid Yearly
Licence
Insurance - Car
RACQ
Car Rego
Bike Rego
Trailer Rego
Reptile Licence
Car Servicing/Repair
Bike Servicing
Car Tyres
Pest Control
Carpet Cleaning
Credit Card Fee
House & Contents Insurance
Post Box
Water Purifier
Accountant's Fees
Incidentals
Birthday/Christmas
Dentist
Chemist
Clothes
Hairdresser
Other/Baby
House Maintenance
Holiday/Special Occasion
Drs Bills
DH Pocket Money
My Pocket Money

It is a bit to set up but once you get it going it works really well. We just change the headings or the amounts as needed (eg: new baby). I divide each bill to make it a fortnight amount and this goes into each "account" every fortnight.

Good luck with your budgeting.:thumbsup:
Peta.

[mtjt25]

Thanks for that AbbyJ

So how many different accounts do you have set up or does it just in to the credit card?

[AbbyJ]

It all goes into the credit card and we keep track of how much we have aside for each bill in the spreadsheet.

For example: we put aside $68 per f/n for rates, the spreadsheet keeps track of how much is available each f/n and when the bill comes in we pay it with the credit card and then take the amount off the spreadsheet.

By "accounts" I mean the amount available for each bill (rates, rego, etc).

Every f/n I add a set sum to each bill and I subtract from the appropriate "account" (line in the spreadsheet) whenever we use the credit card.

We haven't paid any interest on our credit card in over 4 years as we essentially use it as a debit card cause we keep cycling money into and out of it.

We started doing things this way as we get our rates, car rego, electricity and phone bill at around the same time. We haven't had a problem paying any of them since we started. If we don't have enough money to cover something in a particular fortnight we put that item in negative and make it up later. We always have enough money kept aside for other things so this has never been a problem.

HTH, Peta.

[mtjt25]

Thats great Peta - thanks so much for all the help and in such detail I appreciate the time you have spent

Heres to a healthier financial year for me ahead!