My savings journey

MaryMurphy

A very very happy new year to anyone who bothers reading my ramblings

Hi UnluckyT, HAPPY NEW YEAR! I am all better now but I had to
spend New Year's on my own as I was too ill to go to a house party we were invited to. Not that I minded, I was happy to sit in my wee corner watching TV.

Is the £200 savings for this month? Hope it goes well for you, I think January is a tight month for most people so I don't expect to be going out or anything (other than a friend's birthday at the end of the month), so I really think my £200 is realistic. I'll report back though, every time I set myself a strick monthly budget something always crops up...

I think you should definitely have some sort of emergency pot, it really suits me as whilst I may whinge I am broke I am usually not really, as I have the emergency pot to fall back on. My problem is that whilst I will have put money away for a certain think (e.g. dentist, MOT) I will still try to pay for it with my expendable income as the thought of spending my savings kills me (even though I put away in the first place for such occasion! I make lots of sense most of the time, promise )

I have been thinking about my new year's resolutions and I think this is what I want to achieve this year:

- LEARN. I am currently studying towards a OU course, which I am really enjoying. I am hoping to get a good grade in June, and progress the course again in September. I also want to learn more on a passion of mine, astronomy and the universe in general (yes, I am a nerd. I have "come out");

- LAUGH. I am not spending enough quality time with my friends. I love them but it's very easy for me to withdraw and not keep in touch with anyone. For ages. I do like my own company but this isn't healthy long term. I love my mates and I want to spend more time with them.

- TRAVEL. At least once this year (other than our August trip) I want to go somewhere. Be it to my cousin in Germany or to visit a random time in the UK, I want to go somewhere I have never been before. And it doesn't have to be expensive, it researched properly.

The above are more personal resolutions, I have also my savings/budget targets but they've been stated umpteen times so I'll not go over them again!

On a side note, I got one of these sealed tins where you put coins in. I don't really "do" saving pots (other than my virtual pot) but I'll give it a go. A guy I work with said he has one and he puts three quid in it every week, and he'll open it when it's full, so it's an idea anyway, it'll do no harm.

As an update, I now have a whole £4 in my dooyoo account lol it's as much about networking and rating other reviews as it is about writing reviews themselves, but it's ok, I don't want to milk it and write crappy reviews as the old-timers on it will let you know you've written rubbish, and it looks bad on your profile. I am happy with my later reviews but it's a learning curve, so I'll leave it for a while. It's strangely addictive

I think this is me for now, so night night.

xxxxxxxxMMxxxxxxxx

EC12345

Hi everyone - I haven't been on this thread for a while so thought I would "pop in" quickly.

Really interesting to hear about everyones' savings. My last year's target was £3,500 which I managed to do (in fact in the end I managed £3,504!!). This year my target is £2,500 by December 2011 - a little bit less I know but with the cost of everything going up, I have now had to budget more for petrol and food (which is an extra £50 per month - nightmare). Anyway I already have £304 towards the target and hopefully I should be able to save another £30 this month. On Saturday I am getting my hair done and treating my mum to a couple of beauty treatments so I've still got a fairly expensive month to go. After the treatments on Saturday, that will be it for me but then it is only two weeks until payday and I have budgeted for food and petrol so not bad at all.

I am aiming to save this year anywhere between £100 and £200 per month - whatever I can afford depending on the outgoings for that month.

Mary - I also put change in a a pot at the end of the week and last year I opened it and there was about £58 in there. I was really pleased and this helped towards all my Christmas presents. I have started another one quite recently and I aim to put all the change in my purse that I have left on a Saturday.

I was quite disciplined with myself over Christmas in regards to spending but I did treat myself to a couple of sale items from M & S and Debenhams which were hughly discounted and which I had had my eyes on for a couple of months.

Anyway, good luck with the savings everyone and update soon.

E x

MaryMurphy

Hi EC12345! Best of luck with your 2.5 k, I am sure you'll be able to reach it going by how you got on last year I am still plodding along with my target lol

I hadn't really thought about the increased cost of living for 2011 (apart from the crappy interest rates that don't even cover inflation) so I'll need to have a think about that, as it'll affect how much I'll be able to put away...

At the moment what I'm doing is putting away £100-200 per month towards my base savings (other than the month of December) and then at the end of each week I do the "virtual pot challenge" where you round up your account balance to the nearest tenner, and put the excess into your savings e.g. if you have £216.5 you move £6.50 into your savings account.

Then towards the end of the month I transfer a bit more depending on how much I have left and what other expenses I have.

It works for me, and the flexibility allows me to manage it well, hopefully I can carry on using this method in the new year (with VAT increase and inflation).

I don't really know what to use the money in the tin towards, probably our wedding or something... But that's way down the line.

MMx

UnluckyT

The £200 for this month, although get paid in 3 weeks so will be adding more hopefully.
I save my 1ps and 2ps in a pot, add them to my ISA when i get enough and am going past the bank.
One of my big new years resolutions is to lose weigh, so fingers well and truly crossed i manage to do it this year.
Also to keep saving all round, plus one or two others.

MaryMurphy

My eIsa now stands at 45% there. I am very happy as I was owed a fair bit so that's helped.

I have £200 left over which are sitting in my Emergency Fund, but I'm not adding that to my sig just yet as I may well need to spend it before the end of the month (though hopefully if I do it'll be a small amount).

I am doing very well so far this year in bringing a packed lunch to work, not so much with coffees and teas though. Come Monday I'll be back on track so whilst I don't expect to need the £200, I'll keep it there in case something comes up. Whatever's left will be then "officially" split between the eIsa and the Emergency Fund and will be added to my sig.

If (if) I can reach my target of 50% this month, I am going to try and get the balance up to 2 k by the end of March. I have been seriously considering setting up a fixed term Isa for one year and obviously the more I can put away before hand happens the better.

I don't think I will physically be able to do it but I'll never know until I try I guess.

Hope everyone's doing well and hasn't broken their new year's resolutions yet! (lots of people in work "quit" smoking, and they're already back on them. Not very encouranging).

MMx

MaryMurphy

Well I still haven't had to touch the £200 in my savings account so things are looking good so far.

I have been really good this year with bringing my own drinks and food into work. I think it's partly because the canteen in work has put the prices up by a shameful amount, but also as others in my team are making an effort to bring their own stuff so it's good to have someone else about to keep you motivated. I can get lazy at times but so far things are going well.

I am trying a new technique (so to speak) which is working out well so far. Basically at the beginning of this month I took out £150 from my bank account, and every time I know I will be needing some money (be it to get milk from the shop, fuel or whatever) I take out a tenner/twenty quid.

As I know exactly how much money is left at home, and how much money I have in my pocket, I'm finding much much easier to keep track of my spending.

Previously I would have always simply taken money from the cash machine as and when needed - and I always thought I was pretty good at keeping track - but I'm actually finding that having the cash there in front of me much easier to manage.

Hope this makes sense lol as I've only started this in January I don't know exactly what would be a good amount to take out but I think £150 is OK, but I am open to amending and fine-tuning this method as it seems to be good for me. Also as I don't particularly want to keep hundreds of pounds in the house (you never know what might happen).

Any change I have left over at the end of the week I've putting away in jars (we now have a coppers jar, a 5/10/20 p jar, and my pounds jar where I will try to put £3 per week in as mentioned in another post).

So far all the money I have spent has not been in anything frivulous or unecessary, so I must say this year has started off really well for me. The only flip side is that as I am not using my debit card the Virtual Pot challenge is not really working out (where you round up the amount you have left in your bank account to the nearest tenner and transfer the difference into a separate account) as the balance has remained the same! I have been transferring between £2 to £5 per week anyway just to keep things ticking over.

After all this, who knows, we might end up having an actual big fancy wedding after all!

MMxxxx

Queen_of_the_Hive

Hi Mary,

Its been ages since writing in here! Great to read your progress. Well done you!!

Im back in the savings driving seat! When I was on here last I was saving hard to put money towards moving house. We found a buyer for our flat in November but unfortuantely this fell through. We are now back to square one having "wasted" money on solicitor / mortgage costs for the new place.

My financial position has improved since was writing on here. I had some small debts on credit card, these are now gone bar 4 months left on a £35 p/m credit card bill (0% balance transfer). Still got a student loan and mortgage but not really counting these.

Im feeling a bit more upbeat than I should be because I was looking at getting back into a bit of debt as a result of the purchase (sucks but that was how it was looking). However on the positive im using the situation to focus on saving hard to fill the savings gap. My aim this year is to save £500 p/m or £6000 in 2011.

This target naturally all depends on when we get another offer on the property. Thats one crystal ball i unfortuantely dont have!!

MaryMurphy

Hi clarissa, bad news about the house, hopefully something will come up sooner rather than later.

Keep us posted with your savings progress, it's always good to see how others are getting on Plus I think having a target to work towards is always good, keeps the motivation up

MMx

Queen_of_the_Hive

Hi Mary,

Completely agree with you regarding the savings target! Must tell you about a hidden money saver which I only realised this week. Normal mode of transport is my hybrid bike. However in winter it can be quite hit and miss with the weather. Normally refuse to cycle in the rain to work. However this week didnt bat an eye lid and went for it. Just before xmas kitted myself out with winter gear which was also waterproof! Now I dont need to spend that money on tube to work on back. Probably saved £1.30 per journey I think. Its rained 3 days this week so £1.30 x 6 is £7.80.

Also managed to "save" on books. I love books and keep doing stints to library, however there is nothing more exciting than a brand new book (im a geek!). However my local ASDA is selling a good collection of books for £1 each (admitidly they are not new releases). I bought 4! I substituted my magazine craving for the books which should last me longer.

Also made use of the orange cinema deal this week too!!

MaryMurphy

Every little helps eh I too have a bike but I haven't used it due to weather. But now that it's milder there's no reason why I shouldn't use it again I guess... Work is walking distance (about a 20 min walk) but sometimes if I start early in the morning I will take the car (usually twice a week) which is an expense we could do without.

So thanks Clarissa, might take the bike out tomorrow (I kinda forgot about it to tell you the truth!)