How well do you budget?

I suffer with OCD and one of the main issues I have is controlling our family budget, I have a spreadsheet where I list our income and outgoing but then I also have a book which has all our outgoing and a running bank balance which I tick back as it is paid out.

Even with 2 parents working we have to do this, see although many people may think we have lots of spare cash, it’s not that simple. We were silly when we were younger and have debt we are paying not to mention our mortgage!

Now Pensions and Best British Bloggers have teamed up to find out from bloggers how families budget their money especially since the recession.

1)      Has the recession made you more money conscious?

In a way it has but not much more than I already was. I think I’m a little wiser now on our debts and clearing those as we would like to extend or move house but to be able to get the finances to do this is now a lot tougher.

2)      Do you worry about money?

All the time. Like I mentioned earlier I track our money on a daily basis to make sure we don’t over spend but at the same time I try to save where I can to try to clear our debts. Its hard with a young family and house/bills to pay to get any spare cash, especially with the cost of living increasing but our salaries not so we have to be extra careful to make sure money is put aside for essentials too such as car insurance etc.

3)      Do you think there’s enough education around money planning and budgeting for younger people / young families?

Not at all! I honestly think this needs to be started in high school preparing children for the outside world. Working is all well and good as long as you don’t spend more than you earn! I think many people find themselves in debt due to poor planning then fighting to get back out of it. It’s a bit like 10 minutes to spend money but 10 years to pay it off!

4)      When budgeting, do you factor in saving for the future?

At the moment no. I would love to be able to put money away into an ISA or just a savings account but we have no spare cash. Any spare cash we do get goes on paying off debts quicker to free up some more spare cash. In a dream world I’d love to win some money and clear debt so I could save for the future.

5)      Do you think there’s enough education around pensions, and the upcoming auto-enrolment scheme?

Not at all! If it wasn’t for this question I wouldn’t even know what the auto-enrolment scheme was! I think there is so much more the government could do to make people aware of this. I know from a personal point of view if they suddenly started taking money out of my salary for a pension, we would struggle to get through the month without borrowing money!