May Penny Pincher Challenge

245

Comments

  • dreamtruce
    dreamtruce Posts: 101 Forumite
    Sounds good!
    Welcome to the challenge, ceb1995!
    Thats a good reason to join.

    Good goals too !
    Home Deposit: £100.61|BULSFund: £50.00|EmergencyFund: £89.76 | Retirement: 5.21| Xmas 17:£10.00 |July NSD:1 / 15
  • ceb1995
    ceb1995 Posts: 388
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post I've been Money Tipped!
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    dreamtruce wrote: »
    Sounds good!
    Welcome to the challenge, ceb1995!
    Thats a good reason to join.

    Good goals too !

    thank you :) Some of the goals like buying less coffees out are ones I've been meaning to work on for a while but never made much progress, hopefully this month will be the one I do it.
  • dreamtruce
    dreamtruce Posts: 101 Forumite
    Everything will take time!
    I absolutely suck with money. I forget I need it and don't have too much care for it because I don't see it as something material like ... I spend it on having a good time or to do nice things with it.

    I need to be more financially aware now that me & my partner has just moved in and renting our first house...plus we have a lot of life dreams like marriage and kids and stuff. there's no rush for it but nice to have some cash behind us to take some of the stress away. those things aren't set in stone but he keeps leaving hints and stuff. No rush for us though :)
    Home Deposit: £100.61|BULSFund: £50.00|EmergencyFund: £89.76 | Retirement: 5.21| Xmas 17:£10.00 |July NSD:1 / 15
  • ceb1995
    ceb1995 Posts: 388
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post I've been Money Tipped!
    Forumite
    dreamtruce wrote: »
    Everything will take time!
    I absolutely suck with money. I forget I need it and don't have too much care for it because I don't see it as something material like ... I spend it on having a good time or to do nice things with it.

    I need to be more financially aware now that me & my partner has just moved in and renting our first house...plus we have a lot of life dreams like marriage and kids and stuff. there's no rush for it but nice to have some cash behind us to take some of the stress away. those things aren't set in stone but he keeps leaving hints and stuff. No rush for us though :)

    I think moving in does make you more financially aware, we're great with the cost of our bills and food, it's just the non necessities i need to work on that i know will take time. I've managed to have much more self control with a wedding budget than i've had on buying coffees, sweets and beauty stuff for myself, you'd think it'd be the other way round.
  • Jelllibeanz
    Jelllibeanz Posts: 191
    First Anniversary Combo Breaker First Post
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    Hi

    I've never tried a challenge like this before so I am interested to see how it motivates me. Have had a few spendy days, so am hoping this will help to keep me focused. I've decided to the following:
    1. Keep a change jar - will be doing this with £ coins for our summer hols
    2. Keep an expense log - am not so good at doing this when I'm at home and with 2 BH this month I ought to be more careful
    3. Have a monthly goal of a certain amount of No Spend Days - I'm going to aim for 14 - monthly
    4. Take your meals to work - need to focus on this more
    5. Go on a clothes shopping freeze monthly/for a certain amount of time - no more clothes for me until June and it's gonna be a tough one! - monthly
    6. Make a shopping list & stick to it! - been slipping with this lately. If I go on my own I am more likely to stay in control of what goes in the trolley
    7. Sell unwanted items - there are a couple of bits that I should get rid of. Better to make money and for them to be loved by someone else
    8. Use charity shop donations bags as bin bags - never thought of this one before
    9. Grow your own veg & herbs - I bought the seeds approx 4 weeks ago, but still haven't got the kids round to doing it.
    10. Quit an expensive bad habit such as drinking a lot or smoking etc. - don't know about quit, but definitely reduce my wine intake (she says with a glass in hand)
    11. Make extra dinner for the next day - haven't done this for a little while
    12. Meal plan - if I do an inventory then I will be better prepared. There's plenty there. Just need a few bits and to be organised - monthly
    13. If you don’t use it in that month, put it in savings/piggy bank - definitely like this idea
    14. clean and maintain appliances etc - the cooker, iron, kettle, dishwasher and washing machine would definitely benefit from this
    15. Take the dog for a run - have a new F1tb1t to add to the motivation and might do a zombie run with the kids in the morning and it is a win win as it is good for my mental health too.

    Now need to stick this somewhere and explain to MrJ I may need a kick up the backside so it will need to be somewhere public e.g. the fridge
    Onwards and upwards with the occasional kick up the butt required! ;)
    Mortgage '09 = £103k Feb '17 =£79.9k, Aug 17 = £69k Mar 19 = £61k
    Aiming for 10% OP in 2019 - £1320.95/£6100 £3420/£3520 credit card at 0%
  • dreamtruce
    dreamtruce Posts: 101 Forumite
    Nice to have you alongside us,Jelllibeanz!

    That's a super good list you've got there and some of my goals are similar too!
    Aha, I too had a glass of wine *shh* Having a visual reminder is such a good thing as it would help you to focus.

    I made this challenge because I find it hard to save money by doing just one thing, and i get flustered with a million of other ways to save too plus each month is different.

    I enjoy having my goals on an app ( i played around with a few today to get ready for tomorrow and beyond) - I found an app i liked that would work well for me in this challenge as you can create your own catagories and rewards and unlock them when you earn a certain amount of points, but you could only have unlimited goals on premium...which i did buy but Thats just me as I felt i would benefit from these extra features. It's called habithub. I also use habitshare too - which is free, you can add friends by email or phone contacts to it and has unlimited tasks.
    I need to find a way of incoperating this list into my budget journal I recently purchased.
    Home Deposit: £100.61|BULSFund: £50.00|EmergencyFund: £89.76 | Retirement: 5.21| Xmas 17:£10.00 |July NSD:1 / 15
  • Jo_Blogs
    Jo_Blogs Posts: 753
    Debt-free and Proud! Mortgage-free Glee!
    Forumite
    Looking forward to the May challenge :D

    Some great ideas folks :T

    Are we going to start our points for a new month from 0 or carry on? Happy to start afresh :);)

    Hope you all have a great evening :)
    Saved Nitty Gritty £7440.75 [149%] / £5000-[Sep] £58.44:starmod: for the 'Save 12k in 2017' #157
    2017 Womble #35 £3463.27 ;)Sept NSDs 4/15:staradminCCCChl 9/12 months:D
    Sept PPChl#002 Pts 71
  • Jo_Blogs
    Jo_Blogs Posts: 753
    Debt-free and Proud! Mortgage-free Glee!
    Forumite
    Good morning everyone :);)

    Zooming along on the May bandwagon express and I have......

    Checked my bank account(s) (1 point)
    Checked my savings account(s) (1 point)
    Made payments into my savings accounts (11 points)
    Made 2 payments to charity (2 points)
    Today will be NSD No.1 (1 point)
    Sold 8 items on the bay yesterday (8 points)
    Sorted out my budget for the month yesterday (1 point)
    Sorted out my budget spreadsheet for the month yesterday (1 point)
    Updated my budget spreadsheet yesterday (1 point)
    Sorted out my expenses spreadsheet for the month yesterday (1 point)
    Updated my expenses spreadsheet yesterday (1 point)

    Adding 29 points to my May total

    Wishing you all a super MPPDay! :);)
    Saved Nitty Gritty £7440.75 [149%] / £5000-[Sep] £58.44:starmod: for the 'Save 12k in 2017' #157
    2017 Womble #35 £3463.27 ;)Sept NSDs 4/15:staradminCCCChl 9/12 months:D
    Sept PPChl#002 Pts 71
  • ceb1995
    ceb1995 Posts: 388
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post I've been Money Tipped!
    Forumite
    So today we re off out to the cinema but plan to stick to just the £20 or so I ve left in my purse and I ve found a 25% off code that we can use for lunch and I prebooked the tickets online earlier in the week which means cheaper prices for them and I got to use my student card.

    I also made a start last night by making a spreadsheet for May and having looked at last months bank statement decided to set my personal budget as £140 (last month was over £160 which included a couple of trips to coffee shops and two takeaway so I m confident that's doable). I ve decided on 12 NSDs for the month, I m in work 16 days so if I just took lunches and my bottle of water for these days this should be doable.
    So that's 3 points today I think
  • dreamtruce
    dreamtruce Posts: 101 Forumite
    Starting a fresh, I'll add everyones previous points up and make a post about it in the April thread :)

    I've only just really woken up but I have checked my bank account this morning... Technically I have no money left but we needed to get food in and I needed bus fare. I get paid Friday so I borrowed some money from my savings. (+1)

    I need to create a budget but it's hard as I don't know what my bills for the house is yet...
    Home Deposit: £100.61|BULSFund: £50.00|EmergencyFund: £89.76 | Retirement: 5.21| Xmas 17:£10.00 |July NSD:1 / 15
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