How do you do it? budget and bills?

[Loula]

OK so we have never been a good household for budgeting AT ALL, and with all our unexpected medical cost it has been really hard over the years to work out how to budget.

DH would of course like to start getting some good payments made on the house as we have always redrawn to pay for other things like, new kitchen, IVF, cars ect.

Now we are going to be on one wage once my mat pay finish. and as i have been off work this whole pg ive not not got that long to go with the extra cash, even though i also tool all annual leave and sick leave as well as getting mat pay half pay to see it stretch.

so im wondering how you do your budget, ive been looking at some of our bills (what else do you do when you are over due lol)

and i worked out that with PHI and other bills it totals to about $900 a week! (wow i never knew this) this does not include cars and groceries and stuff but doe include current mortage re payment and $100 into a savings account each week which we are using to pay a large bill (which will be finished in November!few!)

One of my questions is do you make regular payments on bills like water, gas, electricty? or do you wait for the bill to come though and make the correct payment? i have a friend who makes regular payments so is often in credit with their provider, does doing this help you to budget better?

just trying to work out what might be best, as if its in our bank we spend it. DH is paid weekly so i think that will help with the budget

we also want to save some money to visit my grandparents next year.

Thanks

[ss_storm]

I think it's better to pay little bits of bills every week (e.g. for electricity/gas) as most, if not all, of the bill will be paid off by the time you receive the bill. You don't have to try and find a large sum of money all at once either to pay it off. Definitely look into making payment plans with your service providers. We have a set up with country energy where they take $56/fortnight for our electricity bill, and I try and pay $50-$100 on the off week as there is no way we can afford to pay a lump sum of six or seven hundred dollars all at once.

Our water bill we can't as we pay the money to the real estate as the landlord pays the whole bill, then we reimburse them for water usage (and they pay the service fees). Our last one was about $120 for 6 or 8 months so that much we can afford to pay at once.

[Loula]

ive phoned a few companies now, and am please to say that the PHI account will now be coming out weeksly and the water rates i know what they have recomended me to pay fortnightly so i feel like i am starting to get on top of things, I think that is how i will go with the bills.

Thanks

[Olive]

we pay the same amount every month on bills so we are always on credit, we pay more for elect. in spring to cover air con in summer and more on gas in autumn to cover heating in winter, we've found paying consistant amounts and staying in credit makes it easier to budget each month as the bills are always the same!

ETA DH has a spreadsheet for every month

[*Ali*]

I pay everything fortnightly, rates, water, elect, phone etc I estimated what our bills would be yearly and then divided that into fortnights, and just Bpay onto the bills, it makes it so much easier than trying to find the money when a big bill comes in, i find by doing it this way we are never overwhelmed with 2 or 3 big bills rolling in at once. I also have set up a seperate savings account which I put $50 a fortnight away for christmas- it means that I know I have a good base to work with come christmas time, to buy pressies and etc food etc.

[Sopdet]

I used to be in a position to pay a bill in-full as it came in, will be back in that situation in about 8 weeks, with a back-up of approx 3 months worth of bills in a high interest savings account. But for now, I currently put money on each bill every pay day. Sometimes I'm in credit when the bill comes in, sometimes I have to pay a minimal amount. I also don't fill my car each pay-day, what I do is put a set amount in every pay period which is usually $30, this keeps me going and I know that is the amount budgeted, now I don't have to drive to work every day, that amount will probably drop but the difference will go on public transport instead.

I don't carry my keycards with me, I have cash in my wallet instead so I know how much I can spend.

I also have my pay going into a variety of accounts.

[Tinks]

I pay everything either weekly or fortnightly.

I am on an easyway payment plan for my electricity. They take $ out of my account every fortnight and I never EVER have to pay the bill whether it's in debit or not. I also get the paying on time bonus on it too.

I pay $50 a week straight into my phone. I set this up myeslf through my online banking.

I have everything come out teh day after our pays go in the bank so I know that whatever is left on a Friday is what we've got to play with.

[~Kim~]

Bpay is my friend. I'm another one who deposits into my Bpay accounts for each bill regularly (like on each payday). I do electricity, water, rates, phones, Austar. I quite despise direct deposit stuff like monthly insurance as it's out of my sequence and I have to remember when they come out so all is good.

[~me~]

ETA DH has a spreadsheet for every month

Yep same here Olive Lol! And it is my job to plug in the bills when they arrive.
We put a certain amount away every fortnight into a 'bills' account. This has been worked out by DH with the spreadsheet what we pay each year. So when a bill comes in, there is money already there to cover it. This includes:

Gas/Elec
Phones (all incl mobile)
Internet
Swimming for DS's
Car and motorbike services
Rego
Insurance on house and car
and any other bills we regularly pay.

It saves surprise large bills as DH has calculated over a year what we spend.
Works great.

[Hansie]

This is the first year I have done this but it has worked for us and we could never save before. So far it's working like a dream

At the beginning of the year I looked at all of our expenses that come out quarterly/ yearly, added them up for each provider for the year and increased them all by 15% divided that by 52 weeks. we then started paying that figure into a spare account that we have. We are lucky that most of our big bills insurances, rego etc start coming out from the June so I had 6 mths to build it up. .

I have a table on one side of my budget with a formula and each time a new bill comes in I add it onto the paid side and it comes up with how much I have left for that particular provider/bill.

For the things that come out monthly PHI & Phone/Internet & mobiles I have come out of another account that has all the direct debit stuff and then our normal account is for food/mortgage & $50per week each for us to spend as we want. We take out the food money and spending money we have budgeted for in one lump and don't spend anything else in the account.

Hope this helps

[Olive]

Yep same here Olive Lol! And it is my job to plug in the bills when they arrive.
We put a certain amount away every fortnight into a 'bills' account. This has been worked out by DH with the spreadsheet what we pay each year. So when a bill comes in, there is money already there to cover it. This includes:

Gas/Elec
Phones (all incl mobile)
Internet
Swimming for DS's
Car and motorbike services
Rego
Insurance on house and car
and any other bills we regularly pay.

It saves surprise large bills as DH has calculated over a year what we spend.
Works great.

lol heather you sure our hubands arnt related!