Budgeting tips please

Ok I have been thinking about this for a while and then seeing Sez25's thread I thought it was time to start a thread.
We are doing OK at the moment but there really isn't any spare. I work a few hours from home but really we live off DH's salary. I have been following Babe's blog and I alreay shopped monthly to try and reduce the bill. I have been trying to reduce other bills too.

But I need some advice/tips on budgeting. How do you keep track of your budget? Do you spreadsheet? Use a computer programme? Put $$ in envelopes?How do you make sure you stick to it?

What do people prefer, paying fortnightly an amount on bills, like power, phone etc or putting money away to pay when bill comes in.

With your sanity money - do you both have eftpos cards or do you get it out in cash type thing?

And can someone please give me the link to Babe's blog?

I REALLY need to tighten up on our budget - or lack of at the moment!

Edited by Booboo

We use easy pay for our power so its a fixed amount each fortnight coming out after DH's pay goes in.
We also set up our rates to be paid the same way by direct debit each fortnight.

Phone bill is pretty much the same each month as we don't make many toll calls, and I set Dh up as my best friend on vodafone so I don't pay anything to call him outside peak call times.

Our biggest flexible expense is our grocery bill. I've found doing more baking and cooking stuff from scratch has saved me heaps.

We don't do sanity money.

I pay most bills fortnightly & keep most in credit.

Our biggest expense would be food & we don't always stick to budget on that. So I want to plan meals & stick to it & use up what we have. Do more baking & keep the crap out.

Linzy If you've been with the same power company for awhile they'll be able to put you onto the average account where you pay the average each month for the year. Otherwise I would just make a set amount each month say $100 each month and you'll go into balance over summer. Do you get the vector pay out? (can't think of what its called) Do you automatically put that on the power bill?

Im too lazy to work retrospectively. I like that everything is now automatic and I don't have to worry about it. For rates I set aside a bit every pay for that so it sits in our bills acc earning interest until the bill arrives so I don't have to find the money for that now either.

Linzy - thats why I have a christmas acc, to pay for all presents so we don't have to look for the money. Just a little each pay into it, we don't notice it but come xmas time we don't have to go looking for money to buy presents.

Yup. DH has a eftpos and credit, I just have my credit card which I've had set up so that I don't need an eftpos card. But our cards don't have access to the bulk of our money, certainly not our savings. I don't like having to get cash out so thats why we have our own accounts for sanity money and have set them up on our card.

Lol, tough luck rule applies here too. Works well. Our house and our degrees are the only things we've ever bought on credit.

We do use our credit cards for most purchases but then pay them off in full each month so we never pay interest.

We don't have sanity money as such, but we do budget for a few items that are mostly just for fun. Like chook food for my vast collection of chooks . Anyone in Palmy want to trade fruit/veges from their garden for free-range eggs? I'm getting about a dozen a day atm!

Elle we are with Mercury Energy. They actually reviewed our power plan recently, changed it and gave us a $100 credit! All I am going to do is work out our average bill over the last year and pay that amount, well once it goes down in summer, at the moment we are paying close on $300/mth

OK so I have set up my spreadsheet and will utilise our 3 accounts, I have even worked out how much I need to put away each month for kindy, PC and swimming fees. Will start next month.

popcorn wrote: What sorts of things do you eat for breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks? I think thats where we majorly fall down

Breakfast - weetbix for all of us, sometimes fruit too
Dinners - I meal plan for the month although I don't allocate a meal for each day, just enough meals for the month e.g. 4 sausage meals, 4 lasagnes etc. I have stopped buying things just cos they are on special and now don't have things sitting in the pantry for ages
DH's lunches - baking (muesli slice and cookies/muffin/cake), ham and cheese sandwich, 3 pieces of fruit (down from 7!!), a picnic pie or pieburger
Jack and Ben - sandwiches, fruit, baking (muesli bars, cookies), pikelets, dried fruit, luncheon, yoghurt, crackers
Me - baking (muesli slice and cookies/muffin/cake), sandwich

I enjoy baking, like knowing what we eat and I think it is a bit cheaper than store bought biscuits etc.
I don't buy any soft drinks or juice - I drinks buckets of tea and DH and the boys have water - this is a big saving.
I stopped buying packets of things e.g. small bags of chips/crackers etc, they are really expensive.
I buy from the local butcher, he is more expensive than supermarket specials but I don't end up with have my mince containing fat and water. I cut our portion sizes down to about 300g meat per meal, cheaper and you don't actually need to eat much. Baked Beans or grated veges are great for bulking out mince dishes plus you can hide veges from the boys and DH!

Edited by Linzy