Can I save 30k by Christmas 2009???

scrooge2008

Sounds easy living on £500.00 for food etc, but I bet you find it really difficult for the first few months.

Have you and your partner started keeping a spending diary and tracking ALL expenditure. In my experience, to stay under £500.00, every penny will need watching, coz it's the few pounds of thoughtless expenditure, every day, that really can rob you of reaching your goal, while not getting you anything tangible.

Fact you're still posting after more than a month, makes me think you're going to get there though. If you have to have a foreign holiday, could you not combine that with your OH's trip to the wedding. Last year we went camping for a week in Wales, instead of our usual foreign holiday, and we had a ball, for next to nothing. I'm sure someone would lend you a tent.

musclesza

scrooge2008 wrote: »

Sounds easy living on £500.00 for food etc, but I bet you find it really difficult for the first few months.

Have you and your partner started keeping a spending diary and tracking ALL expenditure. In my experience, to stay under £500.00, every penny will need watching, coz it's the few pounds of thoughtless expenditure, every day, that really can rob you of reaching your goal, while not getting you anything tangible.

Ahh mate the OH is not shy in spending the hard earned cash - while she has bought into the idea of saving 20k by the end of the year, she isnt shy of spending the cash!!! The daily expenditure for this month has been horrible with a "big shop" tomorrow!!!

We will see how it looks by end of March and hopefully I still have a job then!! Its getting pretty hairy where I work and my mates who are sniffing around reckon there is not much out there....

Mollymop5

As another member of the live on £4000 for a year thread.I think you should pop over and have a read.I'm not telling you you should join the challenge but you will find lots of money saving tips that may just help you in your goal.I wish you well on your challenge

mark5

How old ru musclesza?

Enjoyed reading the thread by the way!

musclesza

mark5 wrote: »

How old ru musclesza?

Enjoyed reading the thread by the way!

Thanks mate, I am 28.

musclesza

The dreaded shop happened and cost 53 squid - probably the most expensive shop I have been on however a lot of it was household goods shared between the housemates so it is slightly inflated but I seriously hope we wont be shopping again for a while!!!

musclesza

The OH got paid (not a full salary as she has just switched to perm and with that went from making a killing to having job security and much less.....)

Hopefully with the shorter month it will also be cheaper as we had a lot of stuff to sort out and some horrendous phone bills - Never leave voicemail active when out of the country think I got nailed about £50 and hardly any messages left - just hit me everytime someone went into my voicemail!!!!

Currently have SAVED: £1060/£20 000
Just another 18 940 to go
Debt: 650+1900 = 2550
Savings: 1650+700 = 2350
Shares 1260(from 1420)
Total 3610

climbgirl

I think you need to do two things - firstly, get the OH on board if you're counting her income in the savings goal figures (and I think you said you are?). She doesn't seem as focussed as you are and frankly, you're not going to make it if she's still spending money on clothes, trips, little bits and pieces here and there. They all make a big difference to your end total!

Put it in her terms she understands if the numbers themselves won't make a difference to her attitude. I don't know what you're actually saving for (can't remember if you've said!) but if you talk about it as something she wants rather than just savings, it makes it more real. So a house deposit, trip, whatever you're saving for. It seems more tangible than just a number and you can then point out that spending £50 on clothes this month means you're x number of weeks further away from your house. Helps get them onside a bit more!

Secondly, sit down and do an annual budget of things you'll need to spend. I'm not talking about rent and bills here (you seem to have a monthly budget for those), I'm talking about things like the visa renewal, flights to the wedding etc. Sit down and work out what the big expenses are going to be this year and start planning for them, put a bit aside each month. They don't come as quick a shock then and it'll make your monthly budget and your savings target a bit more realistic.

Something that might help you both with the sacrifices required to reach your target is to start saving £2 coins or something like that. That money can be spent on whatever you want (plasma tvs, clothes etc). You'll barely notice it coming out of your monthly budget and if you have a little splurge pot, you're less likely to blow your budget. You'll be amazed at how quickly they add up!

musclesza

January turned out to be a very expensive month, with 2700 being spent on everything which is a lot higher than we hoped for. However there were some quarterly bills paid and we had returned from SA and needed to buy groceries etc. We also bought meat at the market so it all added up.

The OH was paid about 700 less than she will be paid in future so things are looking good from end of Feb if we can hold our jobs down

Currently have SAVED: £1060/£20 000
Just another 18 580 to go
Debt: 650+1900 = 2550
Savings: 2080+700 = 2780
Shares 1190(from 1420)
Total 3970

To reach the target from our next 11 paychecks we need to save 1690 a month which is just under 50% of our earnings. I hope we can have a much better February allowing us to save a lot more that than the 1100 we have done so far for Feb. Also after clearing all the CC debts and our last installment for council tax, there is very little money to live for the month.

The OH has bought in which is a positive step and we have started saving the "gold" £1 and £2 (none yet) coins for what will hopefully be the TV - or a trip away...

Fred_Bear_2

Good luck with your saving, Musclesza. The figure that jumped out at me was £100 per month for telephones. How do you spend that much? Have you looked at Martin's telephone advice pages?