Budgeting

[dorsetladette]

I moved to bank with Starling just for their Spaces feature. All money that is needed for stuff is automatically filtered away into the appropriate pot on payday, anything left in the account is available for day to day spending. You can set up standing orders and direct debits to come from the Spaces, so - after the initial workings out and setting up - it all just looks after itself.

An example is my horse insurance renewal this week, it's £1k (claimed this year ) but I'd factored it into my monthly deposits into the Pony Space, so despite being a good chunk it'll just get paid without being a pain point.

You could set up a Competing Space that you pay into regularly so you 'protect' the money you want to spend on competing, but you could also pay in any winnings or leftover pennies to top it up periodically?

Honestly, it was a game changer for me; feel so much more confident with what's coming in and out.

Organise your money with Spaces by Starling Bank - Starling Bank | Starling

Use Spaces to set aside and organise your money in the app. Whether it’s putting money aside for groceries or clothes shopping, it’s up to you.

www.starlingbank.com

This is how I do things too. My 'pony pot' gets the same paid into it every month so it builds up over the summer when not spending on hay and bedding quite so much. This covers any competing or training I want to do in the summer.

We have also downsized dramatically about 2 years ago from a 3 bed bungalow where we brought our children up to a tiny 1 bed flat. It's cut our living expenses hugely. We could now easily live off either 1 income or 2 part time incomes if we wanted too. It really takes the pressure off. But this is a lifestyle choice as we both wanted to do things that required money we didn't have available living in the larger property. But we no longer have friends round for dinner (there isn't room) or entertain at Christmas. I suppose we just have to choose which parts of life we are prepared to compromise on to enable us to do the things we want. We have learnt that life is about experiences and not 'stuff'.

 

[millitiger]

I budget in a spreadsheet.
From that I divide my different groups of costs into different bank accounts.
So I have 5 different bank accounts- one for groceries, one for horses, one for horsebox and car, one for house renovations and one for fun/social stuff.

Training and competition costs are in the horse account, once it's gone l, it's gone! So if it's a heavy month for hay, we cut back on outings.

Make sure all annual costs are accounted for so horse jabs, horsebox MOT and tax, house insurance etc. as well as the forgotten things like hedge cutting, arena maintenance etc.

Then once I'm paid, and before any bills go out, my standing orders divvy up my salary into the different bank accounts, so I can't accidently spend the 'wrong' money.