Sassy, hard working, thirty and living in Manchester Thea, my brilliant daughter, is doing very well in IT Recruitment. So well in fact that she pays a lot of income tax and has ‘spare’ income in inverse proportion to the extravagance of her social life. And she is feeling annoyed, even a little guilty, about the sheer amount of cash that is slipping through her fingers. Dad is called in for a consultation.

“You need a budget.”

“Oh, Daaaaaad….” eyes rolling. Thirty has become thirteen..I persist.

“The only way you will get control of your money is by allocating each pound and consciously making a decision about how you want to spend it.”

For quick readers may I ask you to re-read that last sentence. It has taken me nearly forty years to acknowledge the wisdom of that simple statement. Without a decision there is no control. Something resonates with my brilliant daughter because thirteen quickly returns to thirty. Encouraged I continue.

“Decide how much you want to save and put it into a savings account at the beginning of each month. Before you do anything else.”

“Hmmm, that makes sense.”

“Next you need to take control of your spending - again  by deciding what you want to spend on going out, eating out, booze and so on. Take this amount out of the bank in cash at the beginning of every week. When it’s gone, it’s gone.”

This didn’t go down so well, probably because it hit the spot with a thud. It’s a guaranteed way of taking control of your spending. But it requires attention and discipline or as Thea put it, “I feel restricted.”
Exactly.
Thea never did the cash thing.

“Nobody uses cash these days, Dad.”

Instead she came up with a much better idea.
 

Monzo.

Monzo is a new kind of bank. According to the Guardian https://goo.gl/x83Ngq all the bright young things are queueing up to join including my brilliant daughter.
Monzo has everything you need in a Budget:

www.monzo.com

If you’d like to take more control of your money give me a call. You don’t have to be in your thirties to start being sensible with your money…