Budget

H

Help

Guest
I need some help.

I earn roughly €1400 a month and now am down to my last €40 till the 25th of this month. I just need some advice on doing a budget and sticking to it.

Car payments&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp €203.50
Royal Liver Savings &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp €50.00
SSIA &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp €20.00
Car Insurance&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp €65.10
Petrol monthly roughly &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp €160.00
Lunch monthly&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp €80.00
Total &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp €578.60

But at the end of every month I am so broke.

Balance on Credit Card &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp €420
 
Do you pay rent ? You have no food bill either. You need to write down every penny you spend for 2 months and then give us an account.
 
You should also add up how much you spend annually on "exceptional" items like holidays, xmas & birthday presents, clothes, gym membership, etc and then calculate the monthly equivalent. This could be a significant figure in the context of your budget.
 
Holidays next month 350
Holidays savings 200 for next 4 months
Gym membership 35
Clothes 50 (some months nothing)
Rent = 0
Food = Maybe 40 a month on misc. items
 
Hi Help,

At the risk of sounding like an old fuddy duddy I'll give my tuppence worth. I've never really had a budget...I tend to try to live below my means most of the time and allow myself the odd splurge every now and again.

SSIA €20.00
I'm sure some people might suggest trying to stick more money into this. €20.00 isn't an awful lot.

Lunch monthly €80.00
You could save yourself a lot by making your own. I do...but then I work in an industrial park where there's not a lot to do at lunch unless you like tall grey buildings.

Total €578.60
€1400 minus €578.60 equals €821.40...which is plenty to live on if you have no rent or mortgage and are being fed to boot so where do you think the rest is going? Socialising? That'd be my guess anyway as you know yourself you leave the house with €100 and get home with nothing and you can't even remember how you spent it.

If I were you I'd do yourself up a spreadsheet with all your known monthly outgoings on it. Your net earnings minus your known monthly outgoings will show you exactly what you have to spend on everything else.
After that it's simply a matter of dividing by 4 to see what you've got week by week.
Then write down everything you spend every day of the first week and deduct it from your weekly allowance. I know that all sounds a bit childish but most of us (myself included) don't really know how we're spending money.
For it to work well you need to write down everything...even a chocolate bar or bottle of water should be listed and deducted.
 
help: I think you deserve to be congratulated. Overall you appear to save 620 per month (i.e. 50 Royal Liver, 20 SSIA, 350 this holiday, 200 next holiday) so you are saving 44% of your salary, which I’d say is more than most people on this forum. (And possibly more than most people in the world). This is almost certainly why you are broke at the end of the month. But you are not ‘poor’ as you are building up savings for something you desire - a holiday.

To give you a better picture of your finances and help with budgeting go to the MABS web site www.mabs.ie, read their information leaflets and follow their advice. If you are still hungry for information on budgeting check out the Motley Fool web site www.fool.co.uk, or get Alvin Hall’s book from the library.

Work out your expenditure pattern using MABS’ budget spreadsheet or ideally construct your own from their template. You really need to record your expenditure for about three months and then work out what your average spend is on budget items before you will be able to make any meaningful decisions on how to adjust your finances.

Then analyse your finances, see what you can cut, see if you can substitute less expensive items, etc. (E.g. do you need to spend 80 euro per month on lunch? I know it’s only 4 euro a day but as you can see it does add up. Unless the lunch is a really good deal, why not make it at home; bring in fruit, etc.). Also try to increase your SSIA contributions. SSIAs are a once off chance to get money from the state for doing nothing so try to invest as much as you can. And try to bring your PAYE up to date and ensure that you are claiming for all allowances to which you are entitled.

Also are your savings in the best place? Would it make sense to switch some savings from the RL to the SSIA? Are your holiday savings wasting away in a low interest savings account? A credit union could give you a better deal and would make you eligible for credit union loans, etc.

But realistically with such a high savings ratio the only way to have more money at the end of the month is to (a) reduce expenditure and / or (b) reduce savings and / or (c) get a higher paying job. If your savings goal is to save money for holidays you are achieving this already, and being broke at the end of the month is the price you pay now to have a great holiday in the future.
 
Overall you appear to save 620 per month (i.e. 50 Royal Liver, 20 SSIA, 350 this holiday, 200 next holiday) so you are saving 44% of your salary

Maybe I'm misinterpreting this:
Holidays next month 350
Holidays savings 200 for next 4 months

Is that not temporary savings for the next four months? If so...it's to be applauded alright but it isn't 620 every month. Maybe I'm wrong though. Help...can you clarify that?

Is your state of brokedom solely because of this holiday saving or is it an ongoing state you find yourself in regardless?
 
Hi all,

The hol savings are only temporary.

This is an ongoing thing with me. As this is my first time to get paid monthly, I am finding it very hard to manage and 2 wks after being paid I'm always severly strapped for cash.

I do smoke so I know that that is a BIG lump of money. Roughly €200 a month. About a pack a day.
 
I don't think it needs saying really

but anyway

Give up the fags and put the 200 into your SSIA

You will be surprised how much that will accumulate before maturity along with the Gov top up
 
Re: I don't think it needs saying really

E200 a month on fags. Tut Tut!!!!!

I was in Prague last year before they joined the EU. A friend of mine had asked me to bring her back some Molboro Lights. Over there they cost about E12.50 for 200. I'm sure that they will have gone up since but probably not that much.

Go Holidays are offering 3 nights B&B in Prague for E314 from 1 Nov to 15 Dec.

[broken link removed]

If you smoke an international brand and were to go over there with a friend and buy a couple of months worth of cigarettes, it would be the same as Mr McCreevey paying for your little break.
 
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