Anyone fancy a little new year challenge?

linz

Hi all,

I originally posted this on the Savings and Investments thread but unfortunately it attracted gloating trolls which obviously wasn't the aim of the thread, so I thought there might be a better appreciation and interest from all the lovely peeps on here

Let's call it a little savings thread where we target ourselves to have a particular amount saved by a particular month this year.

Basically, i'm going to start by challenging myself to save £1500 by 31 March which is 3 pay days away. I don't have that much short-term emergency savings so want to increase this by doing not that much different to my normal daily routine really, but mainly by tightening my belt when it comes to food shopping and general monthly spends. I want to be more careful with my spending over the next 3 months to ensure I meet the target or get as close to it as possible, and hopefully not be in a position by mid-March where i'm living on cornflakes and beans on toast!

All of the following will go towards my target -

1. Any money left from wages at the end of the previous month
2. Any money from monthly interest on savings
3. Any money from daily clicks and online surveys
4. Ane ebay sales (won't be much, don't have anything to sell!)
5. Any loose change that can be bagged at the end.

As I said, the majority will come from sensible grocery shopping I hope, good meal planning and no frittering on rubbish. I don't intend to buy any wine or chocs (ate & drank enough over Christmas :rotfl:), have any takeaways buy any magazines/papers/snacks until the end of March when I (hopefully) reach my goal.

Since the new year i've also been walking to work instead of taking the car, thus saving short petrol journeys and it's also good post-Xmas exercise

So since yesterday I have counted the following -

£5 - Halifax reward
£60.99 - Monthly interest from Lloyds Vantage accounts
£15 - Transfer from old bank account
£21.25 - Refund from Debenhams for Xmas present that never arrived :mad:

So i'm at £102.24/£1500 so far

I hope i'm ok posting a 'savings' thread on the DFW board, but i've lurked on here for ideas and people are very friendly and encouraging, and as I said, maybe some of you may like to join in.

So, is anyone up for joining in with a figure in mind?

Edit: Here are everyone's targets -

To have in savings by end of March
wendall £1,600.00
Natasha86 £1,000.00
Linz £1,500.00
Lippy1923 £1,000.00
Goodgirl80 £1,243.22
AfterDark £1,500.00
Mumof4 £2,500.00
GEEGEE8 £1,000.00
Redsaver £500.00

To have in savings by end of April
Mel12 £200.00
Redsaver £1,000.00

To have in savings by end of May
xx-michelle-xx £1,998.99
Laura237 £3,100.00

To have in savings by end of June
MaryMurphy £2,000.00
BabyBetty £5,000

To have in savings by end of August
mrsinvisible £7,700.00

To have in savings by end of October
ald65 £2,500.00

To have in savings by end of November
Redsaver £1,500.00

To have in savings by end of December
Doomcow £5,000.00
BOGOF Queen £2,500.00
ellesbellesxxx £5,000.00
frasersmum123 £2,000.00
EC12345 £2,500.00
n90bar £6,000.00
Cliff1805 £1,500.00
Billie-jo £2,500.00
Gingerjar £1,000.00
Redsaver £365.00
Myrtle0204 £5000

Doomcow

hey linz - im in.. i want to save £5000 by year end. lets hope this is achievable & will all go towards the 2012 ISA or alternatively, towards a cracking fantastic honeymoon in 2012! any more would simply be a bonus.

monthly £5 from HBOS goes to minimum payment on CC, but i have the balance to clear when the 0% runs out.

apart from that the healthy eating (eating less / portion control) will be the major saving.

i dont buy many clothes, but i do spend a fair amount on some weekend drinkies (well, maybe not that much) and the dreaded takeaways! (i chinese / kebabs)

all the tips here are awesome and if im honest the board is well more friendly than those over at save & invest (in my experience). example one comment i got was "its stupid to save anything less than £500/month"...

reckon i should potentially get one of these lloyds vantage accounts - just too much bleedin hassle.

i watch this thread with anticipation and eagerness

linz

I know what you mean Doomcow, there was no need for the idiot to come onto my thread to gloat that he or she could pay it now and 'win.'

I've never felt like small-scale savers belong on that board. It seems to be a place for people who have £50k+ to invest. There needs to be a sub-board on it for things like this then threads wouldn't get attacked and people would feel more comfortable posting. We're all on this site to save money at the end of the day.

Anyway, back to the challenge -

Today has been a NSD. I have just checked online and today I have had £11.25 paid in from panelbase survey site and £47.60 from an old savings account I closed the other day.

Total is now £161.09 :j

Should be a no-spend weekend I hope. Enough food in the house to last and don't need to buy anything for myself. I have a big portion of mincemeat with which i'll do probably 3 x chilli and 3 x shepherds pies and freeze them. Also have 2 x turkey steaks which i'll have over 2 nights with some roasted veg and some half-price sausages i'll do toad-in-the-hole with. Also lots of baked beans which were on offer in Morrisons

Have 3 loaves in the freezer thanks to the local Spar selling off bread at 18p a loaf before Christmas for works sandwiches and will bake a bit at the weekend for works lunches. Will also try and wash the car (weather permitting)

The only thing i'm thinking is i've seen a nice Christmas present for next year on sale on Amazon. Will keep an eye on it for now I think and see if it's still available nearer to pay day

BOGOF_Queen

Hi there - count me in as I am hoping to save £2500 this year, not a vast amount as I am still paying off my car loan which ends July 2013. Put away £220 this month from this month's salary so off to a reasonable start considering just had the expense of Xmas.

Planning to keep food costs down by growing my own veggies and really looking for bargains in the supermarket. Also make sure that
I cook all meals from scratch and do not buy ready meals etc.

Will buy most of my clothes (don't buy many anyway) on ebay - have already found that there are a lot of brand new bargains from Monsoon and Next to be had!

Will be growing and selling lots of plants at car boot sales this year - never done a car boot before so have no idea what I will make from this. Hope for a decent Summer and lots of car booters parting with their dosh!

Finally, every time I think of buying something,will ask myself whether I really need it - my place is full of cluttter as it is!

ellesbellesxxx

Count me in! Want to get 5000 together to pay off student loan.
So far... 8.51 from Music Magpie, 77.50 from Fonebank. Not bad not bad!!! Hehe I have already bought a Christmas pres for next year too!

Doomcow

im not really one for making food and freezing it - only got a wee freezer like.

i thought i took up a cheap sport of running - so far its cost more than a few months at the gym, rofl! trainers, nike+, new t-shirt.. arg!

and yet i still overheat in the gym (get a free ticket!) im so damn unfit..

also plan to loose 1lbs per week this year (approx) - if i can shed another high percentage of my body weight / body fat that'd be a win

frasersmum123

Count me in! I am trying my hardest to save for our Florida Holiday in 2012, so I am doing every challenge I think I can to get me there.

Can my target be to save £2000 by the end of the year - actually money saved rather than money I have made if you see what I mean.

I cant believe trolls infected your other thread, thats really low to try and make yourself feel better on the back of someone else and not very MSE at all.

linz

Nice one Lippy

Well after my good day yesterday i've nothing to report apart from requesting the grand total of £2.70 from 2 x daily click sites lol, oh well, every penny counts! Will add it to my total when it arrives in the bank.

The rest of the month is going to be really tight as i've had a lot to pay out for and not much left. Will be looking for all the deals when I next go to the supermarket and questionning every purchase I think! I have a £5 Morrisons miles voucher thank God, so want to get some more veg and some nice Turkey steaks again that they had on offer on Monday if they're still there, they were about £1.50 for two

linz

So how is everyone doing so far ?

I've had £4.44 paid in from a cashback site and have requested another £7 cashback which has just become payable. Will add the £7 when I receive it.

Had a very frugal weekend cooking up some meals for the week and doing some baking so I don't have to buy snacky stuff (got a sweet tooth ) used a £5 Morrisons miles voucher so top up food for the week only cost £3odd

Total might not look that much so far but i'm a firm believer that pennies make pounds and that every little bit adds up.

Total now £168.23 Hoping to add a bit more from leftover wages before the end of the month if i'm doing ok by then.

Hope everyone's well x

BOGOF_Queen

Not spent anything over the weekend - made sure I stayed away from the shops so went for a long walk on both Saturday and Sunday. Trying to use the food in the fridge, freezer and cupboards instead of buying more stuff - making a vat of soup last a week for work lunches - jacket spuds most nights for dinner.

Not managed to save any more money since payday at the end of December but have about £4 in my QUidco account and about the same in my Paypal account as have sold something on ebay this weekend.

linz

Well another £8.50 today, £7 cashback from TCB for a magazine subscription I got my mum for her birthday and £1.50 redeemed from FatCheese's daily clicks. Total now £176.73. Got a few things on ebay but don't think i'll make much from them. It feels good to declutter a bit if nothing else!

Off to London for the weekend as managed to get room on the £9 Travelodge sale a few months ago. It's hopefully going to be a cheap weekend though, as i'm going on the (£5.50) Megabus armed with a load of the 2-4-1/BOGOF/Free drinks vouchers and the PAUL Card Noire thing for free breakfasts thanks to the restaurant deals page on this site . I've budgeted for this weekend and will add whatever I come back with to my total.

Hope everyone's doing ok!