How much can you save?

sss555s

Must be the weather or summit

I've been treating myself a bit more than normal in the last week or so and i blame it all on hotukdeals!!!

Dell 11.1 netbook, LG cookie for my daughter and a GT Aggressor today

Big update tomorrow from me when my wages reach my account and it wont affect my savings much if at all :j

From then on i'm gonna stick the money away in smaller amounts more often as it gets boring when nothings happening for so long :rolleyes:

Well done all :T

tara747

LucyTheDwarf wrote: »

I think the habit's well and truly here. I got a payrise last april, and the plan was to not spend any more than usual, the difference would be saved. But I haven't had a good month since. It was a good payrise, so I think psychologically, having more money has made me spend more, whatever my intentions. And worst of all (lol) it's payrise time again in October, and I have been told the bosses are extremely happy with me, so I'm likely to get another... This time I will actually have to make sure I don't spend it!

Oh yes, I hate payrises :rotfl: :rotfl:

tking

Hello all,

Great thread - I'd like to join if possible! I'm not actually based in the UK so i hope it's ok. I live and work in Australia so I'll be posting my info in $ not £ - and I also benefit from a higher interest rate on savings (only slightly - 4.75% at the moment).

My goal is to save for a deposit on my own house by the end of 2011 (Dec 31st). I have only recently (2 weeks ago) become debt free (woohoo) so I have just started saving.

Current Savings: $1300
Goal by Dec 2011: $37500

I will try and save $650 - $750 per pay (fortnightly) and I'm going to try and stick to a more stringent budget. If I can do that I should be able to save over $40K.

Looking forward to your support and advice. Good luck to everyone!

sss555s

Welcome tking

Well done on becoming debt free which is pretty much the same as saving :T

Sounds like you have a good plan and keep up the good work.

I've no idea what the Aus $ to the £ is but as mostly everyone else is UK based it may help [STRIKE]us[/STRIKE] me if you stick the conversion rate in your sig.


:beer:

Rosso

sss555s wrote: »

I've no idea what the Aus $ to the £ is but as mostly everyone else is UK based it may help [STRIKE]us[/STRIKE] me if you stick the conversion rate in your sig.

Currently at 1 AUS / 0.54 GBP

bendix

The Aussie dollar is currently very strong, and likely to get stronger as Australia (and NZ) is one of the countries widely tipped to increase interest rates sooner rather than later.

£1 currently buys A$1.84ish. Historical norms are usually at £1 = $2.4

tking

Thanks for the welcome. I think I'll keep posting in $ (but feel free to treat them as pounds) as the exchange rate makes things complicated (especially as I have no intention of exchanging!).

Looking forward to payday on Tuesday so I can stash some more cash!

Cheers.

sss555s

Time for an update.

Still managing to save between £1500-1600 pm this tax year so far and hope to keep it going.

I normally wait till i have £5k clear of commitments in my account then stick it over to my savings account but from now on i'm gonna do £1k at a time as suggested when i asked on here of a way to keep me interested as it was slow :T

So hopefully updates will be more regular :money:

LucyTheDwarf

sss555s wrote: »

I normally wait till i have £5k clear of commitments in my account then stick it over to my savings account but from now on i'm gonna do £1k at a time as suggested when i asked on here of a way to keep me interested as it was slow :T

As soon as I have a spare penny I confiscate it from my current account. Otherwise i'll only waste it on food. I still waste it on food, as I transfer it back or use a credit card, but at least it earns me interest for the day I'm "being good".

nonns

Hi Folks,

I've lurked around this site for months. I've used some tips to get myself debt free. I was in debt because I was careless, lazy and slothful and I invested a lot in a business (which thankfully seems to be still going). Even when things got horribly out of control (horror story level) I managed to juggle just and thus have managed to emerge with a great credit history and a firm desire to never be in that position again.

I am somewhat fortunate in that I earn an above average salary (though job security isn't great) though this hasn't always been the case (the business doesn't pay me a penny - though it pays my wife's salary). My wife and I work hard, really really hard a 15 hour day 6 days a week is not unusual and often 7 day weeks occur back to back so we ahven't got much by way of a social life at the moment.

After my debt filled years and bearing in mind my job security. I ahve managed to build up a years living expenses as savings which I've stashed in high interest accounts. I have woken up and realised I don't have much by way of other savings and investments but I also feel we haven't really got our spending under control.

I've started working out a budget which would be acceptable but it needs more work. It looks something like this

Family income post tax and deductions
~8000 (around 9k with bonuses)
Outgoings
Rent 1400
Gas 60
Electricity 60
Phone 24
my mob and wifes 90
TV license approx £200/year No Sky or anything
Internet £7.50 with 02
Household insurance £60
Personal Petrol £100 Car is company car so no insurance and no servicing
Holidays (no time this years or next - perhaps a couple fo long w/e with parents)
Clothes: both 2 fat so need to lose wait. Will take approx a year to do so sensibly and then will treat ourselves to decent clothes
Going out restaurants (has been obscene which is why we're too fat). We've cut our going out now significantly but i would like to ensure that we go out no more than twice a month to restaurants so assume £300 for restaurants and misc cafes and entertainment.
Music/CD's/Books/subcriptions £80. We don't actually need any more CD's but books are a love.
I guess I should budget around £125 for personal grooming (moi and wifey - mostly wifey. Lurch, the kid, doesn't groom itself, well not as well as the cat anyway. In fact he rarely if ever leaves his set and communicates in low growls and feral grunts when he does. The cat on the other hand can discourse at length on a range of subjects!). I suppose I should allocate £100 a month to clothe no. 1 son but he doesn't need any more stuff anyway and he now has a p/t job so can buy his own rubbish.
Pet insurance ? My wife buys this. I suspect not optimally and I forgot to ask her!

So I guess my questions are

1) What if anything have I missed from a typical budget?
2) What would be a reasonable food/household groceries budget?
3) What on the budget numbers I've presented is unreasonable? My thoughts would be the personal grooming, the going out and the books and CD's but then what should they be?

Please understand, i realise that many are not in my position and this post is not an attempt to rub anyones nose in it. I've woken up. Realised that I've wasted a lot of time and frittered a lot of money. I would like to be in more control than I am. I can find lots of information on living on no cash at all but not much on living comfortably but well within your means.

Quite obviously I can afford to spend thousands on groceries but this would be poor use of money. I could also live off frozen mince or baked beans but this is at the other extreme. Whats sensible and reasonable?
For a family which is looking to eat healthily and live reasonably healthily what should one be budgeting for food and groceries.
When I say eat healthily I mean have a balanced diet and if one is eating meat then its decent quality stuff. E.g. the mince is red and has little fat rather than being fat with little meat!

Whenever we get round to discussing budgeting I rather get the impression that we have allowed our relatively comfortable position earnings wise to allow us to lose touch with reality. My wife tells me that Waitrose is no more expensive than ASDA or Tesco for the things we buy and in fact on some stuff tells me that its cheaper. I must confess that when I try the savings calculators by the time I cost driving the extra miles to check prices at aldi/tesco/sainsburys/waitrose so that I buy the food from the cheapest places. I reckon I would spend much of the savings on driving between the various supermarkets.

The one and only time we tried to save money by switching energy suppliers we ended up spending more and switched back and this was after using best buy sites.

So whats a reasonable budget for a middle Brit family of 3, 2 adults + 1 18 year old and a mid sized cat?