As soon as we met in 2008, it was obvious that spreadsheets were to be a big part of our lives! Dean loved a good spreadsheet and within a few months of being together, our combined income and outgoings were listed in a spreadsheet.
This simple budgeting template helped us towards our first financial goal – to save for our wedding. We were able to identify what we were actually spending and it soon became apparent where savings could be made! Aideen’s daily visits to Gregg’s on the way to work were soon reduced for a start! Once we had worked out what our outgoings were, we decided to redirect some money into our Wedding and Honeymoon fund.
Although our spreadsheet did the job, we began to realise how limiting it was. Though we had a good understanding of where we were in the current month, it was just a snapshot – we weren’t saving the history of our transactions or able to accurately see where we were heading financially. Being a software engineer for over 20 years, Dean began to envisage an App which would provide a much more accurate picture of our finances and help us plan for the future. So from Day One, we’ve been testing and perfecting the App, ensuring the User Experience is as polished as possible.
We recognise that there are lots of different reasons for budgeting and that every budget produced on the App will be different. As Dean spent many years working as a contractor and freelancer, our income was often unpredictable and we needed to understand our finances. If an invoice was late in being paid, as was occasionally the case, our budget helped to ensure we were always able to pay the bills until the money came in.
But through creating a budget, we soon realised that there were many other benefits which we hadn’t really appreciated before:
*Recognising food waste / better planning – When we put all of our expenses into the budget, we realised we were going food shopping way more often than was necessary. This was because we weren’t planning our meals when we did our main shopping - we were just filling the cupboards with stuff. When it then came to deciding what to eat, we realised we were then short on what we actually needed. Hence, we’d be topping up the shopping several times a week – spending much more than we needed to.
We started actually planning our meals and ensuring that when we did our main food shop, we brought just what was needed for those meals. As well as eating much healthier than before, we’ve massively cut down on our “mini-shops”.
*Identifying subscription fatigue – In laying out all of our outgoings, we were able to identify the subscriptions which we were no longer making use of. These expenses can often be forgotten about and dismissed because they are relatively small. However, we were able to cut a couple of hundred pounds from our annual budget just by cancelling the subscriptions which we’d forgotten about!
*Preparing for ‘bigger’ months – Seeing everything laid out on a budget allowed us to clearly see when we had a bigger month in terms of spending so that we were prepared for it. In our case, we have both the car insurance and MOT/service due in March as well as all our usual outgoings. It can be an upset if you have extra expenses but knowing what’s coming makes it easier to plan and less likely that you’ll dip into savings.
*Savings growth has been motivating – Having our savings on our budget and seeing our savings grow has motivated us to keep going. No matter how much we’re able to save, seeing the number increase each month helps our peace of mind!
*Managing our budget takes no time at all – Managing our finances within Budget Pro probably takes a maximum of 30 minutes every month. We simply update our balances, mark the expenses which have been paid and hey presto! We’re able to see our up-to-date projections for the coming months.
As you can see, we’ve found that budgeting has had several benefits for us and is overall, helping us to enjoy life more. We hope by using Budget Pro, you’ll also reap the benefits of budgeting without it being a burden.
To read more about us, please visit Our Team.