My savings journey

MaryMurphy

I'll get paid for my freelance work on Friday so that will go straight towards my Isa, provided nothing major happens!

Still got £335 in my bank account, that'll do me for bro's party and to get his last part of the present (getting it tomorrow as I'll be off), plus filling the car. Hopefully whatever's left over will be enough to both cover my travel insurance and go towards my savings.

I recently decided I should update my signature with my other targets, as having them written down has helped me stop worrying about them, but obviously I'll take them (more or less) one at a time.

I've been very fortunate this month (so far anyway) and I've been able to save much more than I had anticipated, but I am sure it'll not last forever, everyone has good and bad months (I expect!)

I am considering putting away my Xmas money next month once I get paid overtime just to get it out of the way, it'll probably not fully "fill" the target but it'll definitely help. I have a bunch of smaller targets which I think I might tackle periodically while on my "journey" to get to the 3.5 K in my Isa, just so I don't run out of steam when focusing about the one thing all the time. Plus reaching the smaller targets will definitely be a boost!

I am so close to my first 1 K and I can't wait to reach this target. I don't feel like I've been tightning my belt (just been more careful and sensible) and I am really happy I've been able to put away so much already.

I probably wouldn't have bothered if i didn't have this forum to keep me on target, and just relied on my monthly payments of £75.00. As I now know I can cope with less spending money I have actually increased this standing order to £100, so now all my direct debits come to a total of £530.

I've also decided that whenever I get paid over 1 k in my wages (only really happens if I can do overtime) will go towards my savings, as even if I take away £530 from 1 K I am still left with £470 for the month which should be more than enough.

So I guess this was an imprompu mid-month assessment

Feels good to be at this stage already.

MMx

fairtrade

Good to hear you're going to get paid for your freelance work.
My good news is I have an interview on Thursday:)

MaryMurphy

Excellent, was that the job you applied for two days ago? Well done :T Keep me posted.

And... as I know I am getting £100 on Fri I sneakily transferred some more money so now I have:

£ 1000.86

Yay!!

Queen_of_the_Hive

Hello Mary and Fairtrade,

Been reading this and thought it would be great to join the party! I am basically saving up to move house with hubby whilst getting rid of some small amounts of debt. We got married in march this year and I decided it was time for a change. I have had various balance transfer balances ever since the flat was bought 3 years ago. They started at 5k and now got them down to a reasonable amount.

Ok, so my money challenge comes in three parts.

1. Pay off immediate debts that is costing me each month which is my overdraft (£6 per month in bank fees). For this I am putting £150 per month aside in pay packet. Now owe less than £500.

2. Max the ISA limit for this year - this is my main savings pot (now less than £300 away)

3. Put 4k (March 2011 deadline) in another savings pot towards moving house costs / deposit. My husband has the main pot of money for this. Mine is just a top up / extras. So far already got 1k in there.

I am trying a number of different money raising schemes including saving a set amount from salary, selling items on ebay / preloved. Tonight I even applied for a part time evening / weekend job so fingers crossed for that!

MaryMurphy

Hi clarissa62,

Best of luck with your challenges, and hope all goes well with the job opening

I know the usual advice over at DFW is to pay off any debts first and foremost, and then focus on savings (as usually the interest rate on debts far outweights the benefits of saving interest rates) so it's good to see you've made that your first priority :T

Hope you find the site helpful, I've been a long-time lurker but only recently joined and I am astounded at how much having this wee thread's helped!

Keep us posted with how you get on

MMx

fairtrade

Welcome aboard.

Don't know if this is of any use to you, but for some extra spending power I have signed up to a couple of survey sites.
Valued Opinions - surveys can last 20 minutes and you do get screened out sometimes after answering a few questions, rewards 50p-£2 and can cash in at £10 (paid in high street vouchers). Already got to £10 in 6 weeks.
One poll - surveys about 3 mins although they ony pay 10-20p and you need to get to £40 to collect. Only £3-40 to date.

MaryMurphy

Hmm today's been quite a disastrous day MSE wise! :rotfl:

I met up with my bro so I got us dinner (as he is quite broke, doesn't ever have that much "spending money" after bills etc) and I topped up his phone as a pre-birthday present, then I had to top-up my phone, then I had to put more fuel in the car as we've had to use it much more than normal this month.

I also bought him the last bit of his present (I found the perfect jacket for him) so all in all I have £183.33 in the bank to do me until the end of the month.

It's still not as bad as it looks as I am due to get my £100 on Friday, though at this stage it's likely I'll need to spend part of it for party accessories and bits and pieces for brother's party.

The good news is that I still have some ASDA vouchers I won in work a while back so I'll use that to go towards the party stuff (they are bound to do cheap enough party accessories!)

Other than that, I don't think there are any other known expenses coming up (other than travel insurance, but I'll worry about that later this month), and I have a grand total of £13.53 in my pocket so things aren't so bad.

Oh and I got round to opening the joint saving account, so actually I have another tenner coming out of my account this week to open that.

We've arranged to have £50 coming out of each of our accounts and going into the joint savings a/c each month, so I might need to re-think my strategy as my known monthly direct debits come to £580 per month (£400 bills account, £100 Isa, £25 Xmas fund, £5.00 holiday fund, £50 Joint savings = £580, which leaves me £420 spending money assuming I get paid 1 K.

I'll need to see, £420 is still totally manageable, even if I deduct petrol, mobile phone top-up, and all the other bits and pieces I need to pay for).

So, everything is still ok. I was kinda panicking about all this but now that I have it down in writing everything feels clearer now.

MMx

fairtrade

My book arrived :j

$99-95 cover price, £9-95 ebay A1 condition.

This money saving thing is easy

Off to Tesco to buy something that has been reduced in price for tea.

MaryMurphy

Good work fairtrade! :T Hope you get something tasty

shopgirl6035

Can I join in also? hehe

I have started a strict savings plan. I was abusing my savings account with trips to the malls and easily transferring money from my savings account via phone banking, it was just so easy, i could spend anything and i physically wasnt seeing it.

I have now opened a new savings account if a different bank, where i would have to go into the bank and physically withdraw the money myself. So its locked away from me

Im saving 125 a week.

Although today is Day 1, pay day and im already budgetting and down to working out bits and pieces- i must stay away from the shops, i just cant help myself, even online shops.

I have unsubscribed to shops online and fingers crossed i have will-power to keep myself occupied and busy and away from the beautiful malls.

wish me luck

EGC
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