How2: Budget, Budget, Budget! Top Budgeting Tips to Keep Your Pockets Looking Healthy All Month.

One of the hardest things about being an oadult is saving, especially when the majority of entry level jobs can be quite poorly paid (unless you count being a sugar baby as a job). But don’t get down on yourself, statistics show that 15% of the UK population have no savings at all! The Money Advice Service recommends “three months of essential outgoings need to be saved to cover an emergency or unexpected bill”, so I’m going to give you my top tips on what I do to save some coin every month and make my wage stretch. There’s also a couple of bonus tips from one of my good friends who works in finance; I like to call her Finance Queen.

TIP 1: CREATE A BUDGET TRACKER

Honestly if you don’t have one of these yet, I don’t know for you. This is the HOLY GRAIL of saving. It doesn’t have to be complicated or extra; it can be as simple as you want, or as in depth as you choose to make it. Once you have one going, you’d be surprised as to how satisfying it is to be in control of your money!

You can find so many templates online, or even easier, on Excel. The one I’ve been using for the past 3 years is a standard Excel template called “Personal Budget” and looks something like this:

I did take it upon myself to snazz it up a bit and change a few things here & there (yep, mine is obviously pink), but that’s the bulk of it. The key is to make it something you enjoy using and updating. We created our own budget tracker with TheToolbox! Scroll to the bottom of this post and follow the link to get yours today!

Finance Queen’s tip: My suggestion is to start a tracker at the beginning of every financial year. I would also suggest to keep track of any taxes you are paying, you can easily access this by creating a Personal Tax Account on https://www.gov.uk/personal-tax-account so you know how much disposable income you have!

I create several tabs for each pay month of the year (‘JanFeb’ – Jan pay to spend in Feb). On each tab, I outline everything from my savings amount for the month, bills to friend’s birthday events on here – just so I know exactly where my money is going. I also revisit this in the month, if things change and I need to make a few amendments, that’s cool! Also don’t be disheartened if you find you’re changing it so often in the month, everyone’s circumstances are different and you can’t help if something happens out of your control.

I always put savings away at the beginning of the month which I note in my tracker; I give myself a fixed monthly amount as well as a yearly target that I try and reach. If at the end of the month I have some leftover money, then I’ll either treat myself or send it straight to savings. It’s always good to have a saving goal to work towards, for example if you want to have £10k saved by the end of the year, factor that into your budget tracker. I’d also say be realistic with your saving goal, and base it on your annual income/outgoings (don’t just pluck a magic number out of thin air unless you think you’re going to win the lottery). No matter how small or big your saving goal is, having any savings in this current economy is an achievement! So, get saving people but also don’t forget to live and treat yourself here and there.

TIP 2: TRY TO SET UP ALL YOUR DIRECT DEBITS TO THE SAME DAY/WEEK

This is something else I swear by. When I first got into my career and began paying my own bills (oh the dreaded day when your parents no longer pay for your phone contract – we’ve all been there), I made sure I got all my direct debits changed so they all come out within 3 days of payday. This just means you don’t have to worry about money leaving your account mid-month that you may have forgotten about. One word of warning though, if you do start changing your direct debits, some of your payments will be pro-rata for that month, so make sure you’re prepared for a higher/lower payment. Confirm with whoever you speak to about what your next payment will be.

TIP 3: GET A MONZO (OR SOMETHING SIMILAR)

You’ve probably heard everyone say the word Monzo at least once & if haven’t already searched it & applied, do it. I know there are quite a few similar online banks but Monzo was the one I chose & I definitely don’t regret it!

If you’re one of those “I don’t know where all my money goes” people, you’ll appreciate Monzo’s spending category feature. Every time you make a purchase, they categorise your transactions based on the retailer. There are 13 categories to choose from including bills, eating out, shopping & family. You can also amend the category your transactions fall into if you want to get all OCD with it. Then you can see exactly how much your eating out addiction is costing you every month – trust me, you might be shocked.

You can also set yourself a spending budget and customise it to reset on your specific payday every month. This is just another organised way to track where your money is going. It tells you exactly how much money you have left and how many days until your budget restarts.

Another one of my favourite features is the “create a pot” function, e.g. ‘Holiday Fund Pot’. This allows you to create several “pots” within the app that you can store money in. The best part is you can lock the pots! That’s right, you can literally set it to not unlock until whatever date you want and your money will be safe & sound.

Finance Queen’s tip: One app you can use to help with small savings is Moneybox, this app will round up your purchases to the nearest pound and put aside the spare change in a savings pot. You’d be surprised as to how much you can save!

TIP 4: SEPARATE YOUR MONEY

If you ever see me the morning of payday staring into the soul of my Natwest & Monzo Banking apps, just know that I’m probably splitting my money up for the month. This is my fun activity that I look forward to at the end of every month (after paying all my monthly outgoings of course). Having two cards helps to mentally compartmentalise your money (I know this all sounds very extra), but if you mentally know the money in one card is just for expenses, the chances are you won’t pull it out to spend on things.

I’ll always start with a glance over my budget tracker, see what I’ve got coming up this month & head straight to my Monzo app. As you already know, I’m a fan of creating “pots” on Monzo. I tend to separate big events going on in the month such as a friends birthday (we like to do big birthdays) or something significant that I need to buy. I’m quite good with money management so I don’t feel the need to lock my pots, but if you do, this feature is perfect for you. If that’s not the best way to keep you from spending money, I don’t know what is.

For me, this just means I have a clear picture on the real amount of disposable income I have & means I don’t have to think about the more costly events going on in my day to day.

TIP 5: GIVE YOURSELF A WEEKLY ALLOWANCE

This might sound silly, because at the end of the day it’s all your money, but doing this means that at the end of the month, I’ve still got some money to spare. After I pay all my outgoings for the month and put money for big events away in pots, I see what’s left, divide it up & boom… weekly allowance. You can set this up on Monzo so you can track it and make sure you don’t go over budget. If you want to go the extra mile you can lock away the rest of the money too – that’ll really stop the amount of Hermes parcels getting shoved in the bush outside your house. I try to be strict with it just so I can build good habits and it does help because sometimes I reach the end of the month & I still have some cash to splash *orders £100 Amazon haul*.

BONUS TIP: FUN WAY TO SAVE

I can’t take credit for this fun little way to save because I found it on Twitter, but nonetheless, I will impart my new found knowledge onto you. There’s an app call IFTTT & I don’t really know much about it but I know you can link it to some other iPhone apps (Twitter, Instagram, Monzo, Alexa) and create rules that your phone will follow. I realise that probably doesn’t make much sense lol, so I’ll give you an example. You can link IFTTT with your Twitter/Instagram account & create a rule “if I post a tweet/post a picture on Instagram, £1 from my Monzo account gets transferred into a Monzo pot”. I saw someone do this on Twitter with 1p and referenced the transaction “penny for your thoughts”, made me chuckle. This is just a fun little way to see how much money you save without even realising. If you’re a serial Tweeter you might reach even save enough to buy that Chanel bag you’ve always wanted.

How2Girls linked up with TheToolbox to bring YOU the best personal finance budget tracker! Head over to Etsy now to grab your copy:
https://etsy.me/2Ei8XCW or at www.thetoolboxonline.co.uk

Please share with us your saving stories/journeys and let us know what tips and tricks you use!

“Money is only a tool, it will take you wherever you wish, but it will never replace you as the driver” - Ayn Rand.