Savings Log of a 26yr old on low pay

meebsquat

Googlewhacker wrote: »

Well done on being so focused. The Xbox is a cheap form of entertainment especially with COD 7 coming out on Tuesday!

Hours of entertainment!!!

if only my missus realised that by playing cod i'm saving money and not being a lazy !!!!!!!!

MoneyWaster2007

I've decided to take your advice and have set up a seperate savings account purely for car funds. I am going to set up a standing order which will transfer £50 p.m. from my current account into this account, £11.67 of which is 1/6th car tax (approx. £70 every 6 months) and the rest towards MOT/services/possible breakdowns. Do you think £50 is enough?

tiff

Our car tax is £210 a year on our 12 year old Saab and I put away £50 a month for all car expenses so I think thats fine.

MoneyWaster2007

katebl - what I am doing now (and this really is sad by the way) is...keeping my shopping receipts from Asda so I can see exactly what each item costs. Then when I do my weekly food shop at the weekend I can check the prices against my shopping list and know exactly how much it's going to cost before I get there. I can also work out midweek a general idea of the things I will need for the following week meaning I have an idea of how much needs to be subtracted from my surplus for food costs and giving me a clear picture of how much I can save in that week. God I really am sad.

I don't bother so much with the spending diary any more as it is too much hassle updating it all the time. But I know from when I did do it how much money was being wasted when all the small purchases were added up.

I still use the notepad. Find it to be essential in terms of knowing where I am financially at any point in the month. Every time I spend a penny it gets updated. Only takes 5 mins and is a good feeling to know where you are at

Cash-Strapped.T32

When I used to bus-it every day to work it used to cost me in the region of £4/5 a day..
The bus company didn't "provide" a return ticket between the 2 particular stops I use (my home, & the main bus-station, an easy 7 or 8 mile).

If I think of it as £30 a *week* for mere travel & extrapolate a years' worth, that makes roughly £1500 p/y on the busses.

So for me, putting anything less than £120 a month aside for my bike costs is in effect a saving - I've never actually done the numbers before today, but it always seemed like a cheaper way, no I know for sure!
As I sure as hell don't save anything like £120 for my bike, more like a fiver if at all!


Ok, I know you used to take lifts every day, but only you know how sustainable that is/was.
Would you really be able to go on forever being late if your mate rang-in sick one morning? That kinda thing, I honestly don't know, but I reckon it's a valid consideration mate.


Ok, the most organised way is to add up Tax + MOT + Insurance + service x 2, + new tyre x 4, etc..
Divide that figure by 12, and that's roughly how much you need to save a month (or /52 if weekly).

I haven't actually bothered to do that, my bike-fund will probably vary depending on how much I have left over, it'll be more like 5% or 10% of whatever I decide I can afford to save each month, rather than a set monetary figure.

Best of luck with the car-fund, it is a good idea tbh & if you hadn't notice I'm blatantly nicking it too.




As to the spending diary - same here fella, I can't be doing with pulling a book out every time I'm in the corner shop or whatever.

What I do do though is try to use my card for almost everything, then every other day or so, pull the receipts out of my wallet, tot it up & knock that figure off my bank-balance on my budget spreadsheet.
This lives on the SD card on my phone, because apart from my wallet it's the only think I *always* have on me.

I posted this pic in relation to another thread, but I think it's useful here if you decide to borrow it;



This more or less *is* my spending diary.
At the top is my current balance & then wages going in;
(this is a future-month so it has my average wage & basic predicted outgoings, but as the month goes on I just type in my current bank-balance)

Each line takes some cash off my total for whatever item of spending it is, then at the bottom it (hopefully!) it leaves a positive figure which is my month-end balance, and this figure rolls over into next month.

It lives on my phone, because I normally have it plugged in both at work & at home, or if I'm paranoid I can update it while I'm out & about, but my phone is quite an old smart-phone so I don't usually do it - it's an option though & a few taps on an excel spreadsheet somehow seems less "geeky" than pulling out a notepad & pencil from behind your ear..

(added bonus is that it makes it look like I still have a social-life now I'm saving.. :rotfl:)

MoneyWaster2007

Cash-Strapped.T32 - great post! Thanks for taking the time to write all that.

I like your method.

I don't carry a notepad around with me and pull it out every time I spend anything if that's what you thought. All I do is keep a notepad on my bedside table and each time I spend money I get home, log into my online banking, write down my current balance, add to that any cash I have on me, then subtract my set monthly outgoings from this figure and then divide that figure by the amount of weeks left in the month. This then shows me exactly how much I have to play with per week.

I tend to pay for everything in cash which is the opposite to how you do it - personal preference I guess.

I'll show you a couple of images of what I jot down on the notepad, if you can tell me how to put an image on here from a saved file on my laptop???

Cash-Strapped.T32

Ah right, got it
cheers mate & tbh I didn't think you pull it out every time you spend a penny like, but yeah I suppose if you wanted to go to extremes you could - I guess my way is the same as yours, except when i come home I use a spreadsheet, & I carry it round with me all day (albeit on a phone).

I do the same thing again as you, I'll have my IB open maybe once every other day or 3, & reconcile the balance I ought to have on my spreadsheet against the real thing.

I'm sure you've noticed with things like petrol-station charges coming out 3 or 4 days after you've filled-up so you're running with an artificially high bank balance for maybe a week;
It pays to keep on paper (or on phone) what your "real" balance is, because even forgetting that you're due to have a single £20 petrol-station transaction come out can hurt you on the kind of low margins you & I are working on (ok I know, nothing new there ay? )



I don't want to come across all smart-** sounding - Since about July last year my end of month balances have been like £-550 (note the £400 limit :eek:), £-400, £-250, etc.., I'm only *due* to finish a month in credit at end of month December, assuming I keep crimbo prezzies under £50, so don't let that organised-looking budget fool ya!
(Although my £92 monthly personal loan is due to end next month so that has something to do wit it)

In fact, I'm predicted to end this month £192 in the red, but next month £58 in the black;
So I'm seriously considering temporarily transferring £80 over from my insta-isa to mitigate this slightly, assuming (more like hoping ) that next month I can put it back without hurting the overall bottom line.

ampersand

It's as impressive now as when I first stumbled on your thread, mw - and I note another poster, primrose, from 5 OS Pleasures in your Day feels the same.

2 thoughts:
Have you a local College nearby, for excellent standards/prices for hair/beauty done by students and always supervised? There's a training restaurant around most, too - great value and well-patronised[for treat when This Is The One, This Is The One! arrives in your Life]
Also, could you put up a lift/petrol share notice nearby - local shop/newsagent/free paper?
The possible shifts in pub/wine bar[because you are now mobile, you can increase your range/style]are also a good idea on both fronts - She and £s.

I think you're doing well and will feel a benefit beyond all proportion for your £3 weekly extra in the larger room. . .more concerned by Sky costs. Have you looked at cashback sites? Read any lock-in contract details very closely.

Have you picked up on 2 Free £5 spends this week? - one via Debenham's[you need a minimal receipt now], the other via yesterday's Daily Telegraph>Body Shop[bought it for this only:Guardian reader, once a week only, moi]. Plenty of ref.s on mse Threads.

You may like to check the NEWSPAPER SUMMARY Thread before you go to work each day, just in case.

Why don't you try making your own bread? - v. easy and yeast is free at Tesco's[where points DO mean prizes...but that's another mania and a whole new game to learn. Plenty of helpful threads on mse, though] Good for the soul and a definite attraction....

The way things are going, you are lucky to be working and wise beyond your years to have acquired hard-learnt wisdom, shown tenacity and absorbed the mechanics of coping so it has it become second nature and a source of pride.

You'd better call that a Len Goodman set of comments, scoring a '9' with an extra 'Well done!' for helping your Mum yesterday.

jimjames

Just seen the post above with the spreadsheet screen shot. If you decide to go down that route rather than notepad then there are some free options so you don't need to buy MS Excel.

OpenOffice gives you the complete office suite including Word processor and spreadsheet as a free download. Google Apps is also a free way of using spreadsheet & word processor but isn't installed on your PC which gives pros and cons - main pro is that they do all the backups and you can access from anywhere.

For money management there is a free piece of software called GNU Cash that you can download.

From what you've said so far though you seem to be managing perfectly well without any of these options! Having just had to pay out £250 for a new exhaust and another £250 for new wing having just paid the car tax I'm very aware of the costs of motoring too!

Cash-Strapped.T32

MoneyWaster2007 wrote: »

I'll show you a couple of images of what I jot down on the notepad, if you can tell me how to put an image on here from a saved file on my laptop???

Sorry, my fault I missed this bit;

The image has to be hosted on the internet first, I use Photobucket, but there are other, similar sites.

Sign up in a similar way as you would for a Hotmail or Gmail account, there are paid-accounts, but just choose the free one, or whatever name they give it.

Upload your pics to your page, and they display as thumbnails.
Under the pics are a number of links you can copy/paste into posts, code, etc..

www.url to your pic [/ img] (<- leave out the spaces)

Normal "rules" apply, try not to make the image too large in both file-size or dimensions, or folks get upset with you, because too large a pic will ruin the forum's formatting on some people's screens (it forces the text to the side, or worse, makes it go off-screen so you need to scroll-across to read.. :shocked:

Ps: Sorry to go a bit off-topic mate, but hope that helps a little.