Savings Log of a 26yr old on low pay

cashbackproblems

Im pretty sure you would have got a much better deal on 3, iphone contracts are expensive but some great deals on of BB's. My brother on 3 (as an upgrade) pays £22p/m, 24month contract, 800min, unlimited txt and 500mb net (fair use policy)

epsilondraconis

Hey MW2007, you've clearly been working hard to get yourself sorted and so occasionally it's time to treat yourself. Regarding the length of the phone contract and cost, there will always be someone else that has been able to get a better phone deal due to various circumstances. Don't worry about the deal you have, which as you say seems fairly normal, try to enjoy the phone and think of this as a bit of a treat to yourself because you've done so well.

My only suggestion is that you don't give yourself too many of these treats...

Keep up the good work!

NGlady2

Hi moneySAVER - I have just spent the last half an hour reading your thread, very impressive. Reading the thread, sounds like you live in the Sheffield area, lots of students in this area, so why not hit places like the library etc? Have to say, the fact you've dragged yourself out of the hole of debt is a credit to yourself so whoop whoop upwards and onwards.

I am 22yrs old, and earn a little more than you do, yet I still have some debt that I find hard to pay off; find it hard to budget; and nevermind also having a car! find it hard to budget so deffinate of somebody of similar age I am very impressed.

Good on you - happy 2011.

You do have a cooling off period with this contract you know - how long ago did you sign up? I pay £20 per month with voda, 600 mins unlimited text and a x10 mini pro. I negotiated a on-the-phone sales deal to get a 10 per month discount, did u try something similar?

organic_choc

Hi OP,

I dunno if it has to do with you having lived for fewer than 3 years at your current address, but there are better deals elsewhere... But as you said what's done is done, in 2 years time when you renew your phone you might want to check out deals comparison site e.g. http://www.moneysupermarket.com/mobile-phones/

Best of luck with your work, health and family!

Cash-Strapped.T32

Hey mate - Yup, gotta agree with the guys above - £32.50 is quite a lot to be spending on your phone, even if you are paying for the handset (and fair enough, that Curve 3g is a gorgous looking phone).

Not trying to make you feel bad mate, I was on £35 for over a year & I didn't even get a blackberry out of of it, but luckily it was a rolling contract & I brought it down to a tenner when I realised I wasn't using probably half my call or data allowance.


Now, that breaks down to about £8.12 per week, which might not sound like a gret deal to worry about, but as a comparison, I have similar calling needs to you, and a similar phone (HTC s620 running win-mo), and have reduced mine down to £10p/m, with unlimited data, 100mins & 100 texts.

(100mins comes out as about 1hour 40 mins contant talking which is quite a lot considering that half the time these days we send long conversations by text, such as directions, shopping lists, etc..)


However, that BB *is* the sex-phone so we have to take that into account too - is paying more over the long-term preferable to shelling out a big lump-sum at once (and probably halving your savings to-date).

I admit, psychologically I would have a problem with this too, to blow half my savings on a phone would worry me like hell, and so I would try to find a more pay-as-you-go way to pay, like you have here.

============

However, this is the bit where some boring poster types out a bunch of maths & brings the atmosphere down a notch (sorry in advance! )

Skinflint setup: £10 p/m
£10 x 24 = £240 over 2yrs

versus

£32x 24 = £768 over 2yrs
£768 - £250 (handset cost) = £518 over 2yrs


So in short it's asking you to pay more than twice what the tight-ar** pays for calls, even if we take out the cost of a 250 quid phone.

============

I'm honestly not posting this to show off in some weird way, to make out I'm clever or anything (I'm not even debt-free as long as you so I can't talk much), I can only use my own setup as a comparison to help you work yours out.


I use my phone for GPS navigation, a small bit of email & web-browsing (no facebooking or twittering).
Mainly checking forums, or checking an ebay ad during the day without having to find a pc.
I use it for checking excel docs (I tend to use my pc for editing them due to the better mouse/kb), and for most of the normal smartphone stuff like keeping useful computer files on me & available for use outside of home.

I talk on the phone for work purposes, arranging payroll, talking with my boss & his boss, and where a non-0800 number is available, I use it to call companies such as my insurance, or bank (I record all calls with companies I deal with & save them to my pc if there's a poss' dispute, which is why I prefer to use my mobile for these calls if I can get a non 0800 number).

Plus I call my mates, family & text like a normal human being - honestly, I can prove it & everything.


With all that, I still manage to keep it under 100mins p/m, so I think it's possible you've done what I did when I got a fancy new smartphone, and way over-estimated the amount of time you need, & the amount of texts you need. (and I'm a proper-geek too)

============

If you are still inside your cooling-off window, I would suggest this as an option - Call Orange (is it orange?) and suggest to them that you have "cooled off", and no longer feel that you have the correct package (I hear this happens to blokes as we you older but hey).

Then, rather than cancel altogether, reduce-down the package to a cheaper one, even if that does mean your immediate savings take a hit as you pay more for the initial phone cost.

Of course you would need to work out the total cost of the package in a similar manner to the above working out, but it might help.

============

The reason I'm going on so long about this is because if you ever do end up unable to pay them on time, the phone company will stomp all over your credit record, will jump up & down on it & for about 6 years afterward you'll struggle if you really do need to get credit for some legitimate purpose.

So, an awkward call now to some Orange or T-Mob girl to re-arrange your package (um..) is preferable to a more awkward call in 4 or 5 yr's time when you find out that a single missed payment back in 2011 has screwed your car-loan, or you can't extend your overdraft to get that engagement ring or whatever (I know, plans within plans! )

You get my drift though, setting the bar high now increases the risk you're exposed to - damn, what a mercenary way to look at it..

============


Anyway, last point - Sorry to come across all miserable; Honestly I'm not trying to depress you or anything like that, it's not actually a *bad* deal at the end of the day, as you point out many people are on similar tariffs, and that BB should easily last you 2 years.

Plus now you have a BB you can come over to the geek-side & do all your budgeting in excel. Cheers! :beer:


Best of luck however you go mate, all the best.

MoneyWaster2007

Thanks guys!

There are some long replies there so it's hard to reply exclusively to each post.

Thanks for taking the time to post here on this thread, not just to recent posters but to any that have posted all the way through.

As regards the mobile phone contract, I am happy with the phone, have a deal which I will not exceed and believe I'm paying an average price for it. As epsilondraconis suggested, I am just going to enjoy the phone and stop worrying about it as it is a treat for the hard work I have done so far :)

The only negative is that I am now going to be £22.50 pm worse off than I was prior to getting the contract, but this is counteracted by the plus point of being able to make calls whenever I need to.

So...back to the money saving. I think I'll be a lot happier once I hit the 1k mark. And fingers crossed nothing will go wrong with the car, meaning the Car Fund is going up by £50 pm :j

Just need to know that the rubbish job I have is actually making me money and worth putting up with

Went to Morrissons earlier today and bought a Goodfellas pizza for £1.25 and they are £1 in Asda - know where I will be shopping next time!!!

Saving money is so slow and difficult on a low wage, anyone else feeling this frustration??

Savings_Dave

MoneyWaster2007 wrote: »

Saving money is so slow and difficult on a low wage, anyone else feeling this frustration??

Yes I did MW2007 but stick with it and things do/can get better. I could've started saving sooner, but being patient and sensible doesn't come over night. At least you are trying - some people don't.

Cash-Strapped.T32

MoneyWaster2007 wrote: »

Saving money is so slow and difficult on a low wage, anyone else feeling this frustration??

Yeah.. :cool:

I agree with you on that psychological barrier of about 1k - I've set myself a savings target of about £2500 by roughly this time next year, and in my head I'm treating it like it's really important, like losing a girlfriend or something, to kind of manipulate myself into taking it seriously & not giving into the easy life (ie; spending the bloody cash! )


It's threads like this that help me keep taking it seriously, so thanks.

GEEGEE8

Hey there,

I'm new to your thread and have read through it, I can sympathise with a lot you are going through.

Regarding the job.. I went college one day a week last year and this year I'm at uni, so I'm living off £6500 a year in my student loan/grant and hopefully will get a summer job. I live with my OH though, so bills are split 50/50 as this is what we think is fair, even though he earns a heck of a lot more than me, around the 30k mark. But when I get a good job in years to come it'll all work out. He pays for holidays, snowboarding at the local slope, meals out etc etc, so it is easier for me.

I'm going to be poor for 3.5 more years, and so I'm also trying to save all the pennies that I can and start to build up a savings pot. I think I can do okay, even on the student loan.

I'm also reading Alan Sugar, great book, about 3/4 of the way through

I'm in the Leeds area, and to meet people I go snowboarding, it's where I met my boyfriend. It's expensive though, but you should have a look at the Xscape Castleford Snowslope online. http://www.snozoneuk.com/v/castleford

A great way to meet people, socialise and generally do something different. It is a little pricey though, 1hr lesson is £25 I think, but might be worth it to meet new people and do something different to the drinking. I'm also a member of http://www.snowboardclub.co.uk/ where I have met tons of friends and they do meet ups at the local slope etc.. they have a great forum for meeting people etc.. anyhow, snowboarding might not be your thing, but it gave me a new lease of life when I started 5 yrs ago.

I'm 27 by the way.

Anyhow, best of luck with the savings!

Gem

MoneyWaster2007

Forgot to say in my last post I got paid 54p interest on the 1st! Wowsers!! :j:j

Anyway...Cash Strapped - I'm with you on the setting of a target. I'm aiming to hit £1,000 by my birthday in May. And I have a closer target to hit of £600 at the end of this month. That means I'll have to save £120 out of the £275 I have left. It's a bit tight but I like a challenge.

Gem - thanks for reading the whole post. It's nice to hear someone new taking the time to read through the whole thing. Must have taken bloody ages!

Good to hear you are bettering yourself with the education, nice one. I've thought of doing something similar but don't think I could manage on such a low income.

The Xscape thing sounds good, not too far from me either - live in Harrogate. Might give it a try.

Think all this working for a small wage is a bit of a joke. Need to invent something similar to when Alan Sugar invented that mould for the covers on the record player and the plinths. It's a great read isn't it. But it's got so many pages I usually only manage about 2/4 pages at a time.:o

Up to chapter 5 I think - 'developing a !!!!!!!! radar'. Oh yeah, got £5 off this book at Waterstones