Save £2500 in 6 months?? Can I do it?? My savings diary...

LucyTheDwarf

Two words: packed lunches.

(Ignoring the clothes - you know the answer there!)

china-doll_2

Andystriker wrote: »

Apart from the clothes

£65 for Haircuts seems a bit heavy.

I pay £4.45 every 6 weeks to a local Mens barber. Now I don't live in London but £65??????

Also get a loaf of bread and some Bananas from the supermarket and have that for your lunch. Should be able to do that for under £60.

I get my hair/roots coloured and then nourishing treatment in my hair, I think as its quite long (down to my hips) its an extra cost.
A friend is coming over for the weekend to give me a drastically hair makeover, Im getting it chopped off so its shoulder length and then dying it back to my natural colour…AND she’s doing it for free..well sort of, in exchange I’m letting her raid my wardrobe to pick a couple of things that she likes. This means my hair cut will go down to around £35 as its so damaged I won’t be colouring it anymore, or free if she’s happy to do an exchange every couple of months.

china-doll_2

LucyTheDwarf wrote: »

Two words: packed lunches.

(Ignoring the clothes - you know the answer there!)

Im going to work out a packed lunch plan for the week right now, I usually budget £3 a day for lunch which includes a paper of magazine for me to read too, but I guess I can read the news online. I make OK sandwiches too, so if I plan in advance I can save some money here too

china-doll_2

kelloggs36 wrote: »

You will then need to consider what is more important to you. I could not buy any new clothes for 10 years, yes 10 YEARS as I was absolutely skint. I had to rely on hand-me downs and charity shop clothes. Even now, I could not justify £200 per month on clothes - I am lucky if I spend that a year! Personally I would rather save for a holiday or towards my mortgage. You clearly don't need the clothes if you have as many as you say you do - just be strict with yourself - you don't NEED them, and your money is better off in your pocket to go towards something else, more worthwhile instead. It is a matter of discipline and priority.

Wow, 10 years!
I don’t need the clothes it’s true, I think I will go home and go through all my clothes tonight and create a want pile and an EBay pile.

[FONT=&quot]I definitely need to have some savings, my sister has just been made redundant and has very little savings and a HUGE debt from uni and this gave me the wake up call. I don’t know how I would cope if I was in her position. Also most of my friends are finishing uni this year and are in debt and finding it extremely hard to get job at the moment, so I count myself extremely lucky and am wasting my money on silly things![/FONT]

china-doll_2

ok, I am preparing myself for my challenge ahead and have planned next weeks lunch, I priced up my lunch shopping on Tesco online and its coming in at £7.54, which works out to roughly £1.50 a day, half the amount i usually spend on lunch . This is my shopping list:

2 x Tuna sandwhich filler £2.50 (2 for £2.50 offer)
1 x loaf of bread £0.55
1 x tomato soup - £1.89
1 x bag of salad leaves £1.61 (I will buy this mid week so it is still fresh)
1 x ham £0.99

Mon - Tuna sandwich
Tues - Tuna toasted sandwich
Weds - Soup and bread
Thurs - Salad and tuna
Fri - ham & salad sandwich

I will also bring in 2 pieces of fruit each day, but this cost comes out of my monthly grocery money.

I have decided NOT to buy any magazines next week, instead I will sit by computer and read the news and gossip online

My challenge does start tomorrow, but I have leftovers from todays dinner to eat and will be taken out for lunch on friday by my lovely bf so will be spending no money on lunch there.

I managed to save a whopping £47 this month by not spending all my £100 allowance on clothes...£47 down another £2453 to go....:o

china-doll_2

Day 1 of my challenge

Its not going very well, I haven’t been paid from work yet and my phone bill has been taken from my bank account so I’m over my overdraft limit which means I might get a bank charge. :mad: The accounts department said all payments are through by CHAPS so my wages should be in my salary by 3pm today. Luckily I already had lunch planned so didn’t need to spend any money.

I sold 2 more things on ebay today, which brings my total to £121.04 unfortunately one of the winners has said she bidded on my item by accident and if I could cancel her bid, so this brings my total down to £96.17. I have 15 other things on sale, 3 with bids and have 10 items to list when I get home tonight, but my laptop charger is breaking and I have to hold it in a certain way, which slows down my listing as I only have 1 free hand to type with.

joolsybools

If you do get a bank charge because your pay was late then make sure they re-imburse you. That's if your pay was late though?

china-doll_2

joolsybools wrote: »

If you do get a bank charge because your pay was late then make sure they re-imburse you. That's if your pay was late though?

Ahhh I never thought of asking for that, I am supposed to be paid on the 28th of each month, and its usually in the early morning but when I checked my balance at mid day I still had not been paid and the phone bill left my account in the morning. I think next month I will see if my phone bill can come out on the 30th of each month, not the 28th.

china-doll_2

Nothing much to report today, I checked with my bank and as I was paid before 3pm and my account was in credit I was charged for going over my limit. I bought 2 2nd hand books yesterday which totalled £4.80, I will take that out of my clothing allowance.

I had a lovely lunch with my BF today, and then we had a quick peek in the shops, I didn’t buy a single thing although I did see a few summery tops I liked.

Its my brothers birthday on Tuesday so we are having a BBQ tomorrow, I cant wait. I forgot to put birthday costs into my budget, so will have to deduct £60 from my costs, £30 birthday money and £30 to go towards food.

Saturday evening I am going to sit down and work out a meal plan for the week. I might have a look at some of the other threads to get ideas on what to make.

Trix2

Hi China Doll, look out for some clothes swap meetings. They seem to have them at local wine bars and coffee shops. Or you could arrange one yourself with your friends. Swap instead of buy!