This post is on how we budget our finances as a young, married couple aged 24 and 26 with no children. We both work full time jobs and we bought our first home in June 2018. Everyone’s circumstances are different, but this is what we find works for us.

Before we were married, we kept our money separate and budgeted differently. For the past 3 years we have worked hard to get to this point where we can live comfortably. Creating your monthly budget can be extremely overwhelming, but it’s worth the effort!

BANK ACCOUNTS

We have the following bank accounts;

Personal account (my salary is paid into this account)

Personal account (my husband’s salary is paid into this account)

Joint account (all our bills are taken out of this account)

Joint account (we keep around £200 each month in this account for general spending)

Joint account (our savings account)

This may seem like too many accounts to some of you, but I would recommend at least having a ‘Bills’ account and ‘Savings’ account as it is easier to keep track of your money. Even though we are married we prefer our salaries to be paid into our own separate bank accounts, but it is personal preference.

INCOME

In the few days before payday, we will receive our payslips from our employers. I make note of the net amount being paid, less of tax, pension and national insurance and input this on to a spreadsheet I have created on Excel. Once we have been paid our wages, we will transfer all of it to the bills account.

Income
Peter	0.00
Rebecca	0.00
Total	0.00

EXPENSES – BILLS ACCOUNT

I make a list of all our bills that will come out of our bank account during the month and then input our budget against each item. To get our budget figures for groceries and petrol, I tracked our outgoings for these two categories over a time period of a few months and took the average cost.

Also I make a list of what months we will have car expenses i.e. MOT, service, tax, car insurance and also any occasions i.e. birthdays, wedding anniversary, Christmas, so that I can take these expenses into consideration when creating the budget for each month.

Please see an example below (these figures are not accurate);

Bills
Mortgage	800.00
Council tax	135.00
Electricity/Gas	75.00
Water	35.00
TV licence	13.00
Boiler coverage	10.00
Broadband/TV	55.00
Groceries	300.00
Petrol	180.00
Mobile phones	75.00
Car finances	325.00
Life/contents insurance	60.00
Pet supplies	30.00
Crunchy roll	6.00
Netflix	8.00
Contact lenses	35.00

EXPENSES – JOINT SPENDING ACCOUNT

I transfer the rest of the budget after bills to this bank account. We give ourselves a personal allowance of £68 each which we can spend on anything we would like without feeling guilty, which I highly recommend! We keep around £200 each month in this joint account for general spending between my husband and myself i.e. takeaways, days out. After that I will transfer any leftover money into our savings account. At the end of each month before the next payday, if we have money still in the joint account I will transfer it straight to savings. This ‘tip’ for the leftover money has helped us save a lot more quickly rather than just spending it.

Please see an example below (these figures are not accurate);

Joint
Allowance	68.00
Allowance	68.00
Savings	500.00
Takeaways/Food out	40.00
Credit card	0.00
Xbox live	6.00
House expenses	0.00
Other	100.00

OUR FINANCIAL GOALS FOR THE FUTURE

• Pay off our mortgage quicker
• Continue to save
• Pay more into our pensions

A budget helped us save for a house deposit, holidays and for any emergencies so if you don’t have a budget, now’s the time to create one! If you have a budget in place, what has and hasn’t worked for you? Share your budgeting tips in the comments below.

I hope this has given you an idea on how we sort our finances! If you have any questions on this topic, please leave a comment.

Becca