My savings journey

fairtrade

MaryMurphy wrote: »

I am engaged! OH asked me last week when we were out for dinner

Good news coming after the 'bad' week, congratulations :happyhear

margaretclare

leahciM wrote: »

My OH is constantly looking at me in disbelief as I calmly explain to her my reasons for not buying lunch out when I can make a perfectly good packed lunch myself.

When you think of the profits that Costa, Starbucks etc are making it does make you wonder whether having a coffee out is such a 'simple pleasure' and why we should add to their profits - is it such a pleasure as all that?

I've been getting an annuity payment of £1483.92 every September since 1989. To avoid just 'frittering it away' on this and that, living expenses etc, I always aimed to spend it on something definite. One year I got the house rewired, for instance. More recently it has paid my share of a lovely holiday for DH and me - our trip to Germany in 2008, for example. However, this year our holiday was paid for and DH has enough euros left over to pay for our Christmas getaway. I used a lot of my savings to pay for work done in the loft in January so DH paid for the holiday on his own, then he discovered he had approx 500 euros left over which he didn't use in Ireland. So, this year £1000 of my annuity has gone straight into my stocks-and-shares ISA to replace some of what I took out in January. I've also paid off a credit card. I now don't owe anybody a single penny-piece and it is such a great feeling.

DH teases me and says 'what are you saving for - your old age?' Although he only teases quite gently - he knows that savings are essential when you really don't know what will be needed next. He just borrowed £2K for our new-ish car, but he intends to pay £500 off that at the end of this month, and pay the whole lot off quicker than expected. I offered him the £1K instead of saving it, but he prefers to do it his own way.

fairtrade

Looks as though I am going to fall short this month savings are £330/£414. However, with the very poor start I am still reasonably happy with this. There is always this weekends football bet, if I keep making the 6p profit I will be able to cover the £84 in a bit over 25 years. :rotfl:

EC12345

MaryMurphy wrote: »

I am engaged! OH asked me last week when we were out for dinner I was so stunned, but so happy!

This will obviously have a major impact on my savings target, but I will start worrying about it after it's all sunk in

Hey MM, haven't checked this thread for a while. I saw your post - congratulations - how lovely.

Regarding my savings, I had really good intentions this month to try and save between £150 to £200. The short story is that we are going on holiday on Sunday and instead of using joint savings to pay for our holiday cash, we are using money from our wages instead - I know - I suppose the cash in still in our joint savings - my £500 target however is my own personal one. The other money that I was due to save - the £50 to £100 has gone on ... shoes. Yes I know but there was a Debenhams sale and thought I would treat myself.

This month therefore I have only been able to save £30 - will be posting the cheque off tomorrow. Am going to try really hard for the next three months to reach the target but next month I have quite a big expense and then Christmas is coming - may have to review the target but really want to give it a go!

Hope everyone is doing better than me at saving this/next month :rotfl:

MaryMurphy

Wow thanks guys

Hope you have a good holiday EC12345!

Well I've had to make some changes with my plans as obviously I have a wedding to pay for - woo hoo!

I've already had a look at the "weddings" forum, there's A LOT of info there but some really interesting ideas, so well worth the read.

Well I've decided for the following POA. Bear with me, it'll definitely help me to have it written down, below is what I want to have:
- Emergencies, Xmas etc .......... £500 ............ November
- eIsa ................................... 50% ............. March
- Wedding .............................. 30% ............. March

Whether I reach it, well that's a different story. But will definitely try my best

Will keep you posted, now I must update my signature with this info.

MMxx

MaryMurphy

Oh and I forgot to say, I will attempt to live on £100.00 per month after bills during October. It's my birthday and I know I will head out for it at some point so obviously that'll cost me a few quid, but other than that I'll be keeping a very close eye on my weekly spending.

To be honest I don't think I'll be able to stick to it because something always always seems to pop up when I make these kind of resolutions, but I will try my hardest.

MMx

MaryMurphy

margaretclare wrote: »

To avoid just 'frittering it away' on this and that, living expenses etc, I always aimed to spend it on something definite.

Just wanted to say, that is such a good idea. Something to bear in mind if I ever have a lump sum just "sitting there", thanks.

MaryMurphy

I have done some number crunching and I know there no hope of me (us) reaching my wedding target by March, but I'll keep it that way as it'll spur me on to keep trying.

I am aware however that I still have other things going on such as my base savings, and I am quite confident the March target for it will be much easier (relatively speaking) to reach.

Been able to add a whole 1% to the wedding fund today though, woop woop!

So, October Target is to fill my emergency fund (reach £500), and any left over will go into the base savings account.

MMx

<<Just a quick edit>> I went ahead and filled my emergency fund now just to get it out of the way, so I have one less distraction, rather than trying to juggle several accounts and putting smaller amounts into the others.

As above, any £££ left over will go into my Base Savings account.

Good night xx

ILGPink

hi Mary thought I would pop in and say thanks for the post on my thread and congrats on your engagment!! :j

I shall also pop in every once in a while to see how u r getting on xx

UnluckyT

Done it again, spending money im saving for other things again. will need to put the money back and see what i can save otherwise.
still to a point need to look at my money and work out my savings a bit better, hopefully will work things out in the next month. roll on payday thursday. plus be a little less hard on myself, plus stope squandering my savings.