Great British Budget: The progress report
As you might remember, I’ve been taking part in the Great British Budget challenge for the whole of February. To help with this process I’ve been using the budget planner tools from YourWealth, and thought you might be interested to know how that worked out.
First of all, I set my budget for the month right at the beginning, using the site’s software. It included fixed bills, followed by discretionary spending, and my first attempt looked like this:
- £700 for mortgage & insurance
- £85 for utilities, council tax etc
- £59 for other household bills (phone, mobile, TV, internet etc)
- £10 for subscriptions/memberships
- £50 for cash withdrawals
- £85 entertainment & gifts
- £165 for groceries
- £20 for hobbies
- £40 homewares
- £40 for personal care
- £30 clothing
- £75 transport
Rough total = £1,359.00.
These were drawn from my estimated monthly averages, so I expected some of these to be larger or smaller in real life but to work out roughly correct in total. The categories suggested on the site were quite useful – there are some areas that most of us are likely to forget without a little prompting, and it was a comprehensive list. I decided to err on the generous side, so it was achievable (unrealistically tight budgets are often doomed to failure, and they’re very demoralising too).
Because budgets can go down or up a little each month due to the mixture of regular and irregular payments that we all have, I usually plan in a contingency figure of around 10%. This means I’m much less likely to go overdrawn, and more able to absorb life’s knocks and shocks.
Total, with contingency = £1,494.00
The goal for the month was to put any left over funds into my emergency fund, as this had been depleted recently. Ideally I was hoping to be able to put £250 aside, but that was going to involve some cutting back. Fortunately, being able to track my progress really helped to focus my attention on the budgeting, and that had a knock-on effect on my spending – the more accountable I feel, the less I’m inclined to spend.
Total spending
- £700 for mortgage & insurance
- £85 for utilities, council tax etc
- £59 for other household bills (phone, mobile, TV, internet etc)
- £0 for subscriptions/memberships
- £90 for cash withdrawals
- £76.39 entertainment & gifts
- £6.75 for groceries
- £0 for hobbies
- £6.73 homewares
- £43.48 for personal care
- £0 clothing
- £20 transport
- £16.68 e.l.f. sale
Total spent to date = £1,097.29
I took out more cash than I thought I would, but have ended up doing most of my grocery shopping etc in cash so that’s helped to keep the total cost down. Staying away from window shopping and avoiding reading certain tempting newsletters has also meant a zero spend on clothing and hobbies.
This Friday marks the end of the month, so we’re nearly there. There are a couple of low-key social occasions planned, and a small grocery shop might be needed plus some paint, so I’ve budgeted another £50 for that to bring the total to an estimated £1,147.29. In real terms I don’t think I’ve done a particularly tough budget, or perhaps the process simply felt pretty painless. Either way, I’ve managed to meet both my goals: to stay within budget for the month, and put some cash aside for emergencies.
