Josephine's 'I will buy a house by the time I'm 30' diary

LeeSouthEast

Spending diaries are powerful. You could also join me and designate the entire August month one big No Spend Day.

LittleBoots

Hiya

Hope youre having a good day
I've been keeping a spending diary, really makes you think about what youre spending your money on and how all those little bits and bobs add up.

Good luck woth your dfw journey

Cashwitch

Well done Josephine, you go girl! I found the demotivator tool on this site quite powerful and it really had an impact on my spending...try it and see...the cost of spending on lunch in work-time can be a shock, mine was tens of thousands over a working life!!!

edinburgher

Hi Josephine - it looks like you're off to a great start!

Your bills are very reasonable (apart from the entertainment) and you have a surplus :beer: As your counselling sessions are (fingers crossed) a temporary thing, maybe you could try and reduce your entertainment bill to £100 a month for the duration? This alone would save you £700+ a year... That said, counselling isn't the best of fun, so it's really up to you whether or not you can save a bit of money in this way.

House sharing is great when it suits and this is already saving you a considerable sum, so I wouldn't be at all pessimistic about your financial situation. A few minor adjustments (like the partying bill ) will make a huge difference. Little things can make a big dent in your bill (see the £3 spend on a drink and painkillers)!

Generic painkillers (20p from the supermarket) are pretty much the same as a £3 pack of Neurofen etc. and often the active ingredients are virtually identical. I'm always sure to keep a packet in my desk drawer and my rucksack, as nothing would gall me more than paying good money for a tiny dot of medicine that does the same thing.

Cashwitch's suggestion to use the demotivator is a great idea - coffee, magazines and lunches out add up fast. I used to spend £150 a month on lunches etc., now I'm down to £50 I still eat tasty, healthy food and drink organic Fairtrade freshly brewed coffee - I just use my own cup and don't pay Pret a Manger £2.20 when I can get 20 cups for the same money if I make it myself :rotfl:

I'll keep dropping in, as I'm also a youngish DFW looking to get a mortgage before I'm 30.

josephine82

Thank you so much for all your comments. I do agree that i could reduce the entertainment a bit. I can't give up going out for meals and days out with my friends, but I know I can clamp down on the random spending here and there which must add up to ten/twenty/thirty pounds over a month.

My counselling is going to be a temporary thing- in the sense that I hope i won't be going for the rest of my life . I have had depression and eating problems and confidence issues and lots of other things and finally after 10 years of being unhappy I have tackled my fear of counselling and am going. I hate that the money goes on it, and i tried very hard to get free counselling, but its just so difficult. But at least I'm budgeting for it, not getting myself into further debts which is one reason I didn't start it until I got my job now.

I'm in a good routine with lunches for work from home and I don't go out at lunchtimes- its usually the little things on the way to/home from work and on weekends..

Spent £3.00 in tesco last night on some fresh veg- to make some batches of soup. Managed to get 12 portions last night which I think is pretty amazing.

Then I got dragged to the pub for dinner- eeeek, i really didn't want to spend any money. Anyway, spent £5.80 on dinner which i guess wasn't bad really.

Today, is a NO SPEND DAY! woohoo. I get so excited when i don't spend any money!

Tonight I am going to plan August's ebay items, count the loose change in my 'giraffe'.

Next week i'm off to newcastle :T to visit my best friend for 4 days. Should be a cheap week, tickets already booked 3 months ago (£25 return, woohoo!) and she doesn't have any money so all activities are usually cheap or free, and we don't tend to eat out. Lets see how little I can spend, hey?

Thanks for all the support, i have a notebook ready to record all of augusts spending......!

Fire_Fox

josephine82 wrote: »

God, £1800 a year. That is a lot of money!

The thing is, I do all of those things anyway! So I don't really know why it is so much. I don't drink alcohol so I can't even blame it on that!

I must still do a lot of unnecessary spending. :mad:

Ok- I'm going to keep an August spending diary to track it. perhaps if I get shocked by what I actually spend it on, i might be better placed to reduce it!

Today for example my train was cancelled so I had to get a different train, and get the tube to work- had no money on my oyster card and so had to top up £5.00. Dammit. I can claim back for the £1.60 that it costed but its just so annoying- i put my spare change in my money giraffe as well this morning!

BUT: i got expenses back from work today for £3.25 so kind of makes it equal out!

anyway, its payday tomorrow and i still have about £7 in my account, so that's a good thing at least!

I get money coming in and going out at random through the year so I worked out my SoA annually, quarterly and monthly. It's quite an eye opener to see how the daily or weekly spends add up over a year - I spent £600 in one year at Amazon!! :eek: Here is the demotivator tool: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/protect/demotivator/

Don't beat yourself up about essentials like travel to work, there really is no way round that (unless there is an alternative bus or you could walk the last bit?). I think the spending diary is a great idea. Since my best mate got her own flat as well we mainly do girlie nights in - last time I had a ton of free wine from Tesco double-up vouchers so it only cost her the taxi home and me the cost of some pasta, tomato sauce and cheese! :T

The weekend in Newcastle sounds very MSE as does the homemade soup. There is a thread somewhere on the Old Style board about someone feeding themselves on 50p a day - lentil daal and rice is one of the cheapest (and heathiest!) I think. :money:

edinburgher

Today, is a NO SPEND DAY! woohoo. I get so excited when i don't spend any money!

See - it's cool to be a DFW

count the loose change in my 'giraffe'.

Life sized?

she doesn't have any money so all activities are usually cheap or free, and we don't tend to eat out

Ah - there's few things as convenient when you're trying to save cash as mutually skint friends!

Have a good afternoon...

josephine82

As much as I would love a life sized giraffe to look after my money- no, he is not life sized!

Anyway, £5.77 in the giraffe which is pretty good- usually I would have raided it before that but no, I'm going to be strict and see what I can put in for August.

Today was a pretty expensive day- My dad came up today, I gave him £20 for wine he bought me from France- and then we went to ELy for the day and e split lunch (i hoped he was going to offer to pay but he didn't) so that was £12...rubbish, I printed out all the vouchers for 2 for 1 but there weren't any of the restuarants there :mad:

Anyway no more spending for today. Tomorrow is going to be a spending day again as I'm meeting friends for lunch. But hoping to make up for it with no spend days next week, hopefully! ALso I'm going to list all the things I have to sell on ebay, hopefully i can make up for the weekends spending by sellng things I don't need!

I nearly had to go to A & E today- my housemate broke a glass and didn't sweep it up and i stepped on some glass...it bled so much I passed out- luckily my Dad was here to look after me- don't know what I'd have done if I'd been on my own!

edinburgher

my housemate broke a glass and didn't sweep it up and i stepped on some glass...it bled so much I passed out- luckily my Dad was here to look after me- don't know what I'd have done if I'd been on my own!

Ah, the joys of sharing writ large :mad:

Hope you're feeling better - I got a tiny shard of glass in my heel yesterday morning from a glass that shattered last week (and I swept up) and it was sore enough - more than one piece and I would have been in agony :rotfl:

josephine82

Well, after not checking in for a couple of days thought I would come back and add my progress...

Monday I spent 0.99 on a drink and 2.90 on the metro getting to my friends house in Newcastle.

Tuesday was a no spend day.

Wednesday I spent 1.90 on the metro, 1.00 on a new mug for work- my old one needed to go in the bin and I like to have my own mug- good old pound shop! and then £2.00 on lunch while we were out- we were going to go to the pub for lunch but i managed to convince my friend to just buy a sandwich from Greggs and sit in the park and eat outside in the sunshine.

Today I spent 2.90 on the metro and then about 3.00 on some dinner.

Not bad for being away on holiday, eh? I intend for tomorrow and Saturday to be no spend days, then sunday I just need to go to Aldi to get fruit and veg for the week.

Just remembered I bought some boots on Monday but they were a bargain from 67.99 to 31.99. out of my clothes budget for this month so allowed!