Hi, I’m looking for some inspiration and advice. To really control the spending from my joint account after payday we are going to split the spending money into 4 pots. The idea plan is we have that money for the week to spend and that’s it. If we get to the end of the first week and we have some money left in the pot we move that to a savings pot. We then move the money from Week pot 2 and we start again. If we have any money left from that pot we move it to the savings and then withdraw the money from the Week pot 3 and keep doing this until the end of the month. Pay day comes around again and we then fill the 4 pots up and start again? What do you all think? Could we automate this? Any ideas for pot images?
I think it’s a reasonable way as long as you stick to it, which is half the battle. Not sure on automation, maybe IFTTT could help but not used it for stuff like that.
Good luck though!!
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There’s a lot to be said for this style of budgeting - a sort of take in envelope style, but sorted by time rather than category of spending.
My only advice though in this, is make sure you work out what fluctuations you have week by week, so you can properly split the week up to match the “true expenses” you have.
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Wouldn’t it be easier to have just one pot and then syphon off a week’s spending into the account?
I think this is a good idea. We would probably do something similar if my partner and I didn’t happen to have paydays about 2 weeks apart anyway.
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I think the splitting of them is part of the psychology of this approach. Too tempting to take ‘a little extra’ one week if it’s all in a big pot?
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Well both methods require focus not to dip into another pot. If you cock up a pot then you’re still dipping.
My thinking is 4*7 is 28 so that leaves you with a fifth pot of 0,1,2,3 days to allocate for that.
If you are sticking with full weeks, then it makes more sense to just have the current week. There’s no need to do the work in splitting it up.
I would after payday, separate off any bills, put a set amount in savings and then with the remaining for food,fuel,fun divide that by 31 and times by 7.
So if you have £2000 for food, fuel, fun.
2000/31*7=£451.61
So I would each week transfer £450 into the account.
If you end at £40 left then top up on Sunday night with £410 instead to get back to the £450 figure.
I would always recommend keeping a set amount of at least £100 that’s seen as £0 so you aren’t touching the overdraft.
So on a fresh week in the example £550 is in the account balance.
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