Weekly Spend Challenge W/C 3rd July 2011

pointypenguin

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Weekly Spend Challenge. This challenge is open to anybody, no matter what financial place they are in.

On this thread please post an amount of money you wish to stay below within the week (Sunday to end of working day on Friday). This can be pennies or thousands it depends on the individual. Then next Saturday report back and pledge for the following week. The challenge runs from Sunday to Friday so we don't include Saturdays but feel free to change the rules to suit you and include Saturdays or start on a different day.

Feel free to update this thread with daily spends if that keeps you on track. We colour code the results as below:

Green - within budget
Red - overbudget
Purple - zero spend
Yellow - made money over the week

This is a little bit of fun but for many it highlights the fact that maybe that magazine/chocolate bar isn't needed. Hopefully your spending habits can be changed forever.

Moozie was the founder of this challenge and here is a quote taken from her:

Originally Posted by Moozie:
"Good afternoon lovely DFWs Now for anyone looking in, please feel free to join - the more the merrier! Basically, decide on the amount you want to spend up to from Sunday until the end of the working day on Friday then pledge it here and off we go! The challenge is about incidental spending and not for stuff that should be budgeted elsewhere such as bills, groceries, debt repayment etc but you decide what to include at the end - this is about changing your habits and improving your recording of your spends more than anything else. Have a great week everyone and keep it low!!! Moozie x"

Good luck everyone.

W/C 26th June Challengers / Pledges /Total Spent
elsiepac £160
Pointypenguin £30 / £19
meersy £40 / £41.62
debtfree future £40
krustylouise £30
rdchick £200
*zippy* £30
karen is trying £40
chris81418 £45 / £16.50
Eyebright £50
Learn2budget £25
katie07 £45 / £75
onlyroz £150
shezam £40

link to last week's challenge

W/C 3rd July Challengers / Pledges /Total Spent
Pointypenguin £40
redapril £15
karen is trying £30
Psychaley £30
elsiepac £30
laisbojar83 £20
rdchick £
toddybad £60
debtfree future £30
beadgirl87 £40
katie07 £30
meersy £50
shezam £30

pointypenguin

Afternoon budgeteers

I was green last week and I feel like I am really making progress with the budgeting. I just need to keep going and not go crazy as I had one good week.

I am going for £40 this week as nothing really planned but I have a friend coming to visit for a couple of days so no doubt we will end up doing something. This will include any incidental spends but not groceries or anything else budgeted for.

I hope you are all enjoying the sunshine (although it has clouded over here now but will hopefully clear)

Let me know any other results or pledges and I will update the first post.

If there are any lurkers out there, please de-cloak and join us for the challenge.:D

redapril

hi everyone!

my first weekly challenge and im rearing to go as i really want to see how much money i can save if i put my mind to it and start making big dents in my debts, so joined this and the NSD challenge for July!

im going for £15 this week as i dont have anything planned and this will ensure that i take my lunch to work every day next week!

this is purely for incidental spending, which i hope by the end of the week will be a big fat £0!!!!!

karen_is_trying

Hiyas all can i come in again this week for £30 i think i was well under last week so hoping for the same this week really, got only samey samey things going on but we have booked a week away for end of august locally so would like to put my savings in a jar for that...

pointypenguin

Welcome redapril and welcome back karen you are both on the list.

Let us know how you get on over the week.:D

Psychaley

Think I may give this one a go.
Taking part in these challenges is the only thing that seems to stop me spending!
I'm going for £30 this week. I know I'll need to spend £10 on train tickets and I'm budgeting in an extra £20 for petrol and a drink when I go out on Wednesday. Shouldn't need to buy anything else, I'll just have ignore all the giant "Sale!!" signs when I go into work.

elsiepac

Hey everyone

Thanks for starting off pointyp - early as well! I feel even worse about last week's disaster of a thread now!

Sorry again for my lack of presence, as I said, work hideous - workload unmanagable and I've managed to miss a couple of huge important things because of it, things with very far-reaching consequences, so all managers and my director p*ssed off with me and my cr*pness, and i am as well. Also my new guy started Monday, so trying to train him and keep my head above water is proving difficult. So also I've been smoking like a chimney, which I don't want to be as it's manky and expensive. But unfortunately it helps me destress - or at least I associate it with being destressed so may be psychosomatic. who knows. Just call me Puffing Billy. Worked late every night last week - my hours are 9.00-5.30 but atm I'm doing 8.00/8.30 - 6.30 onwards. The latest I left last week was about 8pm. Knackered. Next week will be the same. Hopefully after that will ease off a bit as my new guy is finding his feet quickly and he should be able to handle some basics by then so I canget on with clearing down some more complex stuff.

I love my job, but I've never hated it there so much as this last week. I've felt useless, rubbish and bad at my job, which by the way, i am not. It's the prioritisation and workload that lets me down every time. I know they can't fire me over a couple of mistakes, but I've been worrying about that too. and I haven't got anyone to talk to because I haven't seen my friend all week or my mum really because of working so much and my friends at work are ok but there's only so much detail I can go into due to politics (due to my position I hear some stuff that others don't) so even though I've been to the pub this week 3 times with various different people from work I haven't yet talked about anything. No one understands and I'm really struggling.

Sorry to go on, have just made myself cry again!

Anyway, sorry to ramble, a £30 pledge for me please. Can't afford to spend that at all, really tight month, but must be realistic.

LC x

laisbojar83

Hi everyone,

I am back! I had a couple of rough weeks, so many things went wrong and I had to spend so much money. It just made me feel really low and I had no motivation whatsoever. :mad:

Here I am again. I am so skint lol but at least the cupboards and freezers are full, that should keep us going for a couple of weeks.

Please PP can you put me down for £20.00 this week. It only inlcudes the odd unxpected :rotfl:expenses lol. I have had so many of them lately and they cost me way more than 20.00 pounds tho lol.

Nevermind PMT PMT PMT (Positive Mental Thinking lol).

I hope you are all well and enjoying the nice weather.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

L x

rdchick

Hello peoples,

Not 100% of the final figure for last week but it was most certainly under £200! car is booked in for Monday and I have £200 put by for it, should be no more than £100 really but gotta be sure it'll be ok! I haven't got much planned this week so should be a bit of a breeze!

L and LC hope you have better weeks next week, try to keep positive! Oh and LC don't let work get you down, you are good at what you do, they just gave you a payrise so you must be!!

Take care everyone and have a great week! Xx

toddybad

It strikes me that only including incidenta spending encourages bad shopping. I'm going for £60 total including petrol and shopping. Petrol is about half of this but there's only me so should be able to do this!

laisbojar83

LC, I have felt like that many times on my previous job, hence the job changes, but do not let them make you feel like that. I know it is hard and sometimes just letting it all out of your systerm works. I cried many times too and felt better afterwards.
I am sure this week is going to be a better one and you will feel much more confident. You are good at what you do, have no doubt of that.
We are only humans and are bound to miss things sometimes, silly bosses will never understand that and even if they do, they will not tell you lol.
Big hugs and stay positive.

L x

elsiepac wrote: »

Hey everyone

Thanks for starting off pointyp - early as well! I feel even worse about last week's disaster of a thread now!

Sorry again for my lack of presence, as I said, work hideous - workload unmanagable and I've managed to miss a couple of huge important things because of it, things with very far-reaching consequences, so all managers and my director p*ssed off with me and my cr*pness, and i am as well. Also my new guy started Monday, so trying to train him and keep my head above water is proving difficult. So also I've been smoking like a chimney, which I don't want to be as it's manky and expensive. But unfortunately it helps me destress - or at least I associate it with being destressed so may be psychosomatic. who knows. Just call me Puffing Billy. Worked late every night last week - my hours are 9.00-5.30 but atm I'm doing 8.00/8.30 - 6.30 onwards. The latest I left last week was about 8pm. Knackered. Next week will be the same. Hopefully after that will ease off a bit as my new guy is finding his feet quickly and he should be able to handle some basics by then so I canget on with clearing down some more complex stuff.

I love my job, but I've never hated it there so much as this last week. I've felt useless, rubbish and bad at my job, which by the way, i am not. It's the prioritisation and workload that lets me down every time. I know they can't fire me over a couple of mistakes, but I've been worrying about that too. and I haven't got anyone to talk to because I haven't seen my friend all week or my mum really because of working so much and my friends at work are ok but there's only so much detail I can go into due to politics (due to my position I hear some stuff that others don't) so even though I've been to the pub this week 3 times with various different people from work I haven't yet talked about anything. No one understands and I'm really struggling.

Sorry to go on, have just made myself cry again!

Anyway, sorry to ramble, a £30 pledge for me please. Can't afford to spend that at all, really tight month, but must be realistic.

LC x