How do you organise your cash flow, spending, bills and banking services?

LAdrianFerra on 07/02/2017 - 23:10

Hi All,

I'm looking for some OzBargain inspiration!

I have my banking spread across a few different institutions, and I've decided I need to better manage everything. My salary is deposited into the CBA but I also have a couple of ING accounts including a joint ING saver with the wife. I've got cards with ANZ and 28 Degrees. I have about 10K in an ING savings maximiser for emergency. Anything left after living expenses and bills go into paying down an anz balance transfer card that is still interest free. I also have a comsecc account, but own no shares at the moment as I sold out a while ago to finance a refurbish of our house. I don't pay any bank fees, but would be prepared to pay for decent services. I have no rewards cards, although the wife has a qantas ff. I'm open to ideas about rewards cards etc, but cant really see how they could work for us as we have small children and couldn't really take advantage of the free travel etc.

My wife has the home loan and offset with bankwest and we will need to remortgage in the next couple of years. Our biggest expenses would be the mortgage, probably followed by childcare, then everything else - car, rates, internet, mobile, electric, etc etc. To be honest, we live very frugally - our mortgage is not crippling, we have a clapped-out car I keep on the road through sheer enthusiasm, we have secondhand appliances in the kitchen and we plan our supermarket shop and cook to a weekly menu.

So my biggest issue is that our spending and bill paying is totally chaotic - we use a mixture of b-pay, direct debit, transfers, credit card and cash, from different accounts. It's very difficult to track spending and bills.

My best case scenario would have everything with the one institution that has some sort of awesome budgeting / tracking features. I was a big fan of the ANZ Money Manager and I currently have an active Pocketbook account although its not really up to the job of tracking combined spending / planning for both my wife and I.

So yeah - I'm curious how other OzBargainers organise their cash flow, budget and pay bills, and any ideas or strategies around this stuff.

Thanks!

Financial

Comments

  • Zaenille on 07/02/2017 - 23:31
    +1

    I have a Google Sheet set up. It's great because it can get as complex as I want it to be, I can access it on my phone and on my PC from anywhere.

    Every single cash in cash out is there. It's grouped fortnightly (I record Feb 6 - 19 as one group for example) scheduled along with my salary.

  • altomic on 07/02/2017 - 23:42
    +1

    I have 3 accounts - everyday account, mortgage, other account for periodic payments.

    all monies comes in to the everyday account.
    the other account is topped up every so often so that there is enough money for autopayments e.g. bills, school fees.
    the day that I get paid I put all remaining money from the previous weeks pay onto the mortgage (which has a draw back facility).

    bills which only have to be paid each quarter - rates, electricity, water all fall within the same week. i usually pay after I have received an account warning. I pay with draw back from my mortgage to pay them.

    I don't have a budget. I just don't spend too much money (except overseas holidays).

    my mortgage is small, my car is owned outright. school fees are my largest regular expense.

    Credit Cards- 28 degrees + Citibank. - purely for travel and buying crap overseas.

  • [Deactivated] on 08/02/2017 - 01:19
    +1

    Sometimes being with 3 or 4 institutions is a hassle but works out cheaper but you have to do all the running around. There seems to be no easy solution but keep up to date with the latest offerings and don't become victim to the lazy man's tax.

  • Stoozer on 08/02/2017 - 02:12
    +1

    http://www.ewise.com/

    Ewise is not so much a budgeting tool but can give you a live snapshot of all your accounts with multiple institutions. It is especially good through westpac online banking. I imagine quiet a few ozbargainers would have been using this service for the last 15 years given some have dozens of accounts. It is far easier to have one log to access all.

    • RockyRaccoon on 08/02/2017 - 07:10
      +1

      Not bad considering ANZ shut down their money manager. But it has a number of log in issues. Like 28 Degrees bow cant be accessed, and Coles Mcards aren't available because they still link to old login sites.

      And yes I have notified them a number of times, but nothing. Also Qanta FF now doesnt work

      But better than nothing, just wont work with all accounts

    • Mad Max on 08/02/2017 - 11:11

      Do you trust this ewise to have all your banking accounts details and all your passwords?

      • RockyRaccoon on 08/02/2017 - 16:57

        The passwords are stored on your computer and accessed by the program when it logs in via Westpac. Passwords arent available to ewise

  • RockyRaccoon on 08/02/2017 - 07:12
    +1

    For tracking paynents and when they are due , look at Chronicle

    http://chronicleapp.com

    Mac and IOS only.

    Someone from the other side, may give you recommendations for PC/Android

  • Nugs on 08/02/2017 - 07:13
    +3

    don't waste money.

    as I say to my partner often; you might not be able to earn more, but you can spend less

  • MITM on 08/02/2017 - 08:53
    +1

    Funds into NAB.
    ING for monthly debits. I dump a months worth of funds +$10 to cover all the regular debits for the month.
    Coles Mastercard for all grocery shopping & fuel. (interesting looks from Woolies, Aldi, butcher etc)
    Citibank Visa for all major purchases that may need warranty claims & for OS purchases. Receipts get stapled to the statement print out.

  • Euphemistic on 08/02/2017 - 10:33

    Try to keep it simple. Minimal accounts, one credit card account. Trying to keep track of multiple accounts to save a few dollars is not worth my time/effort.

    We have an offset account that that handles most transactions (salary in, bills out), savings account for share trading (sitting with a small balance), one credit card account with a card each paid off in full monthly, and as a just in case my wife has a separate higher interest account at a separate institution. Her wages go in there, and we transfer across to our offset account for big purchases, or if the balance goes above our preferred limit.

    We live comfortably and are savers rather than spenders so typically don't have to budget for everything. If we want something, we get it. If we need a big purchase (holiday, car) we either start saving, or more commonly have already got plenty of reserves so we 'save' afterwards to build the reserves back up again.

  • marcusv on 08/02/2017 - 12:52

    I use Bankwest for my everyday banking account and to pay bills, receive salary (my employer also uses BW so its in my account instantly) etc.

    I opened an account with Macquarie a few months back as part of their brainsourcing campaign. Their netbanking and app allows you to budget and track different categories. They are also adding more features based on feedback. The other feature I like is the ability to open savings accounts instantly. So I use Macquarie for putting different amounts aside such as an emergency fund & next holiday fund. You can get $40 for joining if you visit the wiki here - https://www.ozbargain.com.au/wiki/macquarie_referrals

  • Tgb on 08/02/2017 - 20:14

    Use Pocketbook. Groups all accounts, cc's etc. Has budgeted spend and you can set reminders for bills.

    They have also recently reinstated support for 28 degrees. Personally, I find their budgeting too high level, so have set up my own spreadsheet where I import the (mostly automatic) categorised pocketbook transactions and this then gets picked up and compared to actuals by category & of sub-category based on month & year to date with a few graphs for quick analysis. This also allows me to forecast overall asset/liability position for the coming 12 months.

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