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I am trying to budget for the new year.
Please, if you are interested in this sorta thing, have a look and see what you would change or improve about my budget  Feel free to interrogate me if you want to get to the bottom of anything, and feel free to add any suggestions of what you would do with the money yourself....
EXPENSES:
language class - 20/week
gym - 6/week
food - 40/week
rent - 90/week
internet - 8.50/week
nutrition/milkshake - 10/week
phone - 5/week
total = 179.50/week
INCOME (approx)
32 hours @ £6/hr = 192
7 hours @ £7.60/hr = 53
after tax/NI (guessing here, put it at 5%) = £232/week
EXTRA
family member gives me £22/week!!
SAVINGS
(income only) 232-180 = £52/week or £208/month or £1248/6-month or £1664/8-month
(with the 22/week) £254-180 = £74/week or £296/month or £1776/6-month or £2368/8-month
STUFF I FORGOT/OTHER
bus ticket - 4/week (need it for one day at work)
language class is at least £10/hour and 2 hours a week would be good dont you think
toiletries
the 40 for food budget isnt confirmed
i tend to buy weed sometimes = 25 a time but maybe i wont now that im starting to respect "sleep" more over "pleasure"
STUFF I WANNA BUY
- proper camera for £400 or whatever. ive had reoccuring dreams abut one for years! this is not a priority but may potentially come down to an impulse buy at some point
- teach english as a foreign language CELTA course - around £900 . intense course (cant work during the 4-week course so - throw on another £500 or more!). will give me some teacher skills and job prospects.
- renew driving license and maybe get a motorbike license so i can drive in other (cheaper) countries
- something else that would be good for me? any ideas? courses in england are not cheap for non-students
LASTLY
- factoring in the money my relative gives me, i only need to take £30/week out of my income and put it into the savings account to make the £52/week that is expected.
- i will be working 39 hours a week but my travel time is cut down massively as im mostly working at a place right next to my house now so its great.
- i might/will put an advert in local shops saying i can offer newbie computer advice (to like old people) , maybe £10 for 70 minutes (walk to their house) , if i can get 3-4 of those per week (preferably on the same day) i could cut out one of my regular work shifts
- if you know something i can do like 1 day a week or online to make a day of money then please tell me! variety is very important to me as my job does my head in. dont bother mentioning poker unless you wanna roll me for 50nl and pay my living expenses so i can study+play for 10 hours a day -_-
- other stuff idk
- any ideas for a money-making skill i can learn? music....art....computer science.....idk anything, completely skill-less
 
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lol something you should probably add to help out ppl giving you advice would be the area you live (country etc), how old you are, and what you're qualifications are.
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UK, age is 25-30, A-levels (no university)
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woah, sorry I"m from Australia and those income level sounds really low..
i mean in google it says £7.60 = less than 12aud...and that's like way below minimum wage here...what exactly do you do?
Just asking cause I"m in Australia and i got same qualifications like you (and many at my workplace actually), 22yo and when i first went job searching I went into telemarketing and the pay was still 17.41aud p/hr no experience required and they took in just about anyone that applied. shitty job though, but at that point i just wanted money to supplement uni costs lol.
Maybe had a quick browse around like on those job search websites.
Other than that though, you can always just cut back a few dollars making pasta or invest in a cheap rice cooker + 40kg bag of rice haha
edit; tldr; for me, it just seems like the problem is your income seems a tad too low, your expenses, i don't think you can cut back much more unless you really know the local areas and where to get better deals and stuff
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United Kingdom10823 Posts
Ok, a few things that I can think of:
- Check with your college about any one-off jobs that they need. Normally there's a student service area for it, and they pay ok (I used to get about £100 a night doing backstage stuff for local gigs at our Student Union.) Dunno what the pay will be like at a college, but may be worth it
- Have you talked to your parents about increasing the amount they give? If its a major issue maybe they can bump it up a bit
- Whereabouts in the UK are you?
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im a healthcare assistant (experience with dementia) but thats generally minimum wage. my new workplace is gonna put me on the NVQ3 qualification and after that theyll pay me a bit more (how much i dnt know, negligable). the other workplace pays much more 7.60 but 2 hours travel per day + bus pass + much harder job there. new place is 5 mins walk from my house!
living in brighton now (moved here last year to restart my life after being an alcoholic - came down with no money no job, knocked on doors for 2 days until someone took me in on housing benefits, now i rent my own place (no benefits at all) ). i know other places are cheaper to live but everything is cool here - awesome gym 5 mins walk, nice flat . i just wanna save up some then fuck off to another country to become an english teacher. cant stay in england coz a) fucking hate the place b) debt collectors will rape me eventually
parents give all they can...i wasted so much of their money in the past.
i might look into some "home care" type job, like where you stay for 24 hours at a disabled persons house to help them, that kinda thing, i think its well paid. idk
a big cost is "luxury" items, like if i come home from work and i want some fruit juice i would go spend £4 on it etc. i drink water but have a superstore next to me so impulse buys there are tempting
gtg bbl
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When it comes to impulse food buys, you could try working with a cash based food budget. Set yourself ex. £40/week and take it out in cash, and make sure you only use that for your food.
It's a basic tip to help with impulse control!
You can also use a tax calculator website to get a better idea of income after tax, they are usually simple enough to use and you can put in almost no information.
If you have more than one bank account, then using one for your savings money is a good plan, means you basically don't touch it or even look at it once the money has gone in there.
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Once of the best bits of financial advice I've ever gotten was to have 8 months of expenses saved. I would put virtually any purchase behind getting up to 8 months of your projected expenses in the bank-- after that you'd be in a better place to start looking at making purchases.
Lonyo's advice is very sound, restricting yourself to cash is a good way to help with impulse control.
If you can get the closer job to give you another 7-8 hours, I would look at quitting your distant job (unless it's doing very good things for your resume), after the cost of travel you're only making a few bucks more, and presumably after your certification is done even a negligible raise will make the closer job more valuable.
Offering computer services for non-technical people is a good idea for extra revenue (and if you had two more hours a week from working closer you could put that to good use) but in my experience that sort of work is never consistent enough to reliably drop a shift.
Good luck!
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i do use cash, but if i am more organised now and dont just have X amount floating around then yeah thatd help a lot
tax i will have to phone them up and get my new job off of basic rate. i dont get taxed much at all thank fuck due to low income
i have a savings acc and will direct debit £50 maaaybe £60 into it from my work acc. i dont like using banks really tbh incase they are allowed to freeze them and take your money due to debt (no idea if they can)
i would love to have 8 months savings but i cant get my head around working 5 days a week with no luxuries/expenditure for 16 months straight. the sooner i get out the better coz they will eventually track down my new address and i will go insane
i stayed at the further away job because it gives my life some variety. working in a care home drives you nuts doing the same thing day in day out day in day out. i am going to be looking for a 3rd place to work infact (actually i got one but they never followed up after they sent the police check (not exactly squeeky clean lol) and i never bothered to call)
variety is very important to me
i find shit hard coz im trying to eat properly , gym, and work , and i came from a lifestyle where i was staying in bed browsing (TLnet) until the last minute every day . to some people it isnt a big change but to me its coming, crawling out of the gutter, it takes time bit by bit
anyway tnx for advice, i am back at my apartment now , rebooting my old new PC 100 times waiting for the hard drive to start working again lol sigh
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Usually a good rule of thumb is that housing costs (rent and bills) is not supposed to exceed 1/3 of your after tax income.
Speaking of taxes, you might want to take the time to calculate that appropriately. I'm not familiar with UK tax levels, but 5% would be far too low for anywhere in the US. See if the UK has a tax website that can summarize tax amounts.
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we get an allowance of 7k per year (i believe) so its pretty low until you go over that threshold
im super lucky to have a place with bills included, rent is £90/week inclusive. location is perrfect (gym + bus stop + superstore) and nice kitchen + shower (sharing). working 39 hours per week sets my rent at 38% of a minimum wage salary (£6.10) (if i can do math)
job websites........!
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With 52/week it'll take you about 8 weeks for the camera and around 24 weeks for the CELTA assuming that you set aside an extra 500 since you can't work during the time.
My best budget advice is: Don't spend more than you earn, simple yet hard.
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A cheap source of protein is textured vegetable protein, which you can just mix into meals. At Bob's Red Mill you can get a 25 pound bag for only $39.80. You end up getting about 285g of protein for just $1 (along with a small amount of carbs). If shipping is too expensive you might be able to find a similar product at your grocery store.
edit: Also, how many minutes do you talk on your phone per month, how many texts do you send, and internet usage?
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hrm never heard of that will look it up tomorrow
phone, i will be looking at a new contract soon as old one runs out, will be a lot more strict with that, and wary too - i had to call customer support to find out why they hadnt connected my internet yet and the cost of the call was £17 LOL. my mom said i should write to them to complain, tnx for the reminder..
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For the phone, I've been looking at the T-Mobil website and they seem to have good deals for no contract plans for if you don't use your phone very much. Not sure what they offer in England.
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this is going to be a lot easier if you put it all in a spreadsheet.. just a heads up.. easier to do and easier to ask for help with
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EPT
