My savings journey

Queen_of_the_Hive

4 days to pay day and work have asked me to attend a conference on Weds. Will have to upfront the costs and claim them back. Annoying as down to last pennies... will have to borrow from hubby and put on the plastic. Should have the expenses back before the card has to be paid.

Bought lovely curtains from M&S, they had a 20% day. Wanted specific curtains and was pleased with the purchase. The previous curtains in bedroom were silky ones and had wripped in 2 places. Not good when we are showing prospective buyers around the flat. The rips were quite obvious.

Mary... keep up the good work!

UnluckyT

I get paid in 2 days and can't wait. Really want to see how much i will be able to save etc?
Have to pop into the High street for an appointment so will be making the most of being able to get to the banks and the large supermarkets while i'm up their.

MaryMurphy

snowqueen555 wrote: »

I can relate, I have a budget, but then something ALWAYS turns up, be it something in my house breaks, someones birthday etc etc.

I too will be following this, to see if you get your 2k by June


Good luck

Thanks, welcome aboard

clarissa62 wrote: »

Bought lovely curtains from M&S, they had a 20% day. Wanted specific curtains and was pleased with the purchase. The previous curtains in bedroom were silky ones and had wripped in 2 places. Not good when we are showing prospective buyers around the flat. The rips were quite obvious.

Mary... keep up the good work!

Thanks!

I love M&S stuff, but I tend to avoid going into it because I always end up buying stuff from the food section, which is really lovely but really expensive! So good to hear you found them on a sale, especially as you actually were looking for curtains!

UnluckyT wrote: »

Really want to see how much i will be able to save etc?

I am the same... I'll have to wait until Monday but hopefully it'll be OK as I did some overtime during Christmas there, so I think I'll be able to save up a right bit.

Been naughty and booked OH and I (amongst other friends) seats for a comedy gig in May But it's less than £30 each and I am really looking forward to it! It's handy as I'll pay for OH's ticket as part of his birthday present. AND because it's relatively far away it'll not have a massive impact on my savings as I can put away a small amount towards it each month. We'll be staying at a friend's house so the only thing we;ll have to pay for is a "few" drinks and food.

Excited!

By the way thanks for all the comments, really appreciate it and hope everyone's getting on well with their targets.
MMxx

Barros

UnluckyT wrote: »

I get paid in 2 days and can't wait. Really want to see how much i will be able to save etc?
Have to pop into the High street for an appointment so will be making the most of being able to get to the banks and the large supermarkets while i'm up their.

i get paid in 3 days (and counting down the hours!!!) and also can't wait

How much do you want to save Unlucky T?

Im hoping to put away a right stash this month, about £900. Fingers crossed - not got my wage slip yet though :eek:

UnluckyT

I will get my wage slip tomorow and see what i will put away for this month.
Ive not come up with a definate amount i want to get to. Mainly because im trying to save a lot for my travels as id like to travel round Australia and New Zealand and visit Egypt and Italy and other places. and because i just dont know what round the corner, so id like a fair amount behind me in case. should really work out roughly better what im saving for and how much im saving etc.
Plus ive had to increase my budget for things in general, but need to work out a set amount for savings but keep putting it off and just seeing what ive left each month after bills etc and working it from thier.

Barros

UnluckyT definitely take your bills off your wages leave yourself a budget and bung the rest away.

out of sight, out of mind.

Queen_of_the_Hive

YAY YAY YAY! Its Payday and ive hit my 1st month savings target... bit of a random figure £443!!

Celebrating tonight by not having a take away but a lovely home cooked meal!!

Lawrah28

Hello, I'd like to join this thread! I am a new money saver. Got myself out of approx. £6k debt, starting a new year fresh but do live on almost all I earn, single parent working 40 hours, I recieve working tax credits to cover before / after school childcare, need to learn how and where to save. Have started by counting up all my loose change around the house, came to £44.31!! Yay!

MaryMurphy

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]@ Lawrah28 welcome! Please do join in, I’ve found having this thread is a great way [/FONT]to keep the motivation levels up one thing I would say (which I’ve picked up here on MSE) is that if you have any outstanding debt it’s usually advisable to pay that off first rather than saving, as any interest earned by saving is completely obliterated by the (usually much higher) interest rates on loans and credit cards.

I also found that setting a target and some sort of time limit really helps, e.g. we are looking to save quite a large amount for our wedding, but I’ve broken it down in smaller chunks, so it feels like I am making progress and helps us keep on track. We’re hoping to have 2 K saved up by June, but whether that happens will be a different story.

Make it sustainable though. I’ve announced in the past on this thread that I will save a very ambitious amount of X pounds by such and such a date and then life happens and my very very strict target never materialises!

@ Clarissa yay that’s great!

I’ll have an update when I get paid on Monday but hoping to put away £200 into the wedding fund, maybe a bit more depending on much the car repairs are and whether we finally order heating oil this month (been trying to put it off TBH but with the bad weather due to return I don’t think we can leave it much longer).

@ UnluckyT I have constant problems trying to balance my general spending and saving. All our bills are covered by a standing order from our individual accounts into a joint account so we don’t have to worry about them in the slightest, but things such as food I often pay for out of my own money, so it’s tricky.

I will be trying a new approach this month. I will withdraw a set amount and use a portion solely for grocery shopping and the rest for any other kind of spending.

Last month I took a set amount and used it for both categories without making a distinction which seemed to work well for me, so I want to see now if spilling it into two different groups will help. I haven’t reached the stage yet where I need to write everything I spend money on down…

Btw usually things like petrol money and big grocery shopping comes out of the joint, but when we go to the shop to buy bits and pieces like bananas for work etc out of our own pocket (if not bought during the big shop).

I’ll report back during February how I’m getting on with this.

MMxxx

UnluckyT

Hi all.
Managed to save £200 out of my wages plus £2 of coppers.
Have managed to save extra with my budget for myself etc, but i seem to have spent as much as ive saved. Mainly because of needing to get 2 prescripions plus new shoes, bought in clarks in hope of them lasting longer, as im fed up of buying cheap shoes to wear them out in a couple of months.