Save it for a rainy day

Flat_Eric

Hi :wave: I'm Flat Eric :wave: and I'm rubbish with my money. If its in the bank. I spend it. If it isn't in the bank, I dig out the credit card. If I'm bored with the credit card, I say hello to my overdraft. In short, my attitude to money needs an overhaul and instead of spending all my spare money and MORE, I instead want to squirrel it away [STRIKE]under the mattress[/STRIKE] in a safe place for a rainy day whenever that may be.

My overall aim is to save £10,000.00 Wow thats a crazy amount of money but nothing is impossible and I'll start small and aim high. Every penny helps. :T

To start off with, I'm going to aim for £1,000.00. That's £1,000.00 on top of any premium bonds or other savings I might have. It would be nice to achieve this sum before xmas but I think that's being a bit ambitious but we will see what happens - you never know - I might surprise myself!

I'll keep you all updated on here....

so lets get cracking.......
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Rainy day fund saveometer £0/£1000.00

McKneff

Good for you. Good positive thinking.

If you get tempted to buy anything just pick it up, say to yourself
'Do I really need this?'
Invariably the answer will be NO. Take great pleasure in putting it back down again.

Open a cash ISA, no tax to pay on any interest.

Watch it grow.

Flat_Eric

I can't find the Weekly Spend Challenge thread for this week so I'm going to post details here instead. Its better for me to run my weeks Mon through Sunday. This week I'm allowing a budget of £20. Anything that's left can go in my rainy day fund :j

I'm excited about this challenge. It should be fun and it will be great to see the pennies grow ....

Earlier I logged into my bank and swept the odd amount into my saving account. This amounted to £6.02. Small but a start.
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Rainy day fund saveometer £6.02/£1000.00

Flat_Eric

Its been exactly 5 months since I last posted. :eek: I'm not sure where nearly half a year has gone nor why my spending habits haven't changed. So much for my Rainy Day challenge.

Next month is going to be interesting. I'm already very overdrawn and my credit card has been taking a battering as I've been busy buying xmas gifts.

I wish I could skip xmas and wake up at the end of January.

Rainy day saveometer back to zero.... need to start saving again and budget properly. Not just continue to spend spend spend as I have been doing recently.

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Rainy day fund saveometer £0.00/£1000.00

elantan

Hey flat Eric , I think I've bumped into you on the boards severly times over the years as I recognise your name and avatar

So what's your plan ?

Flat_Eric

elantan wrote: »

Hey flat Eric , I think I've bumped into you on the boards severly times over the years as I recognise your name and avatar

So what's your plan ?

From January, I'm hoping to budget properly. This means I will be looking at all my money and working out where savings can be made and not allowing myself to spend my wages and more on unnecessary items - i.e. more kindle books/craft stash etc when I have plenty to keep me going for a lifetime over. Would like to start from next month and will try but be a bit difficult as having hair cut and have a few lunch dates booked as on leave early part of the month. also have a few more xmas gifts to get.

elantan

Sounds like a plan to me ... So you have a month to get yourself ready ... Good luck

Flat_Eric

Ordered 2 things on @mazon this morning but have cancelled them this evening. (£18.99 and £20.14 saved).

Also returned for refund 2 kindle books costing £9.99 each plus a few books that cost odd amounts ranging from 88 pence to £2.56. I have so many books on my kindle - I won't miss them. Hope to get some of the books from the library instead - certainly the Stephen King 11.22.63 novel that I thought about buying for £4.99 in the week - have reserved that.

I have also cancelled my subscription to audible - this was costing me £14.99 a month. I had to go through about 5 cancellation screens and resisted their offer of reducing my membership to the one book a month plan with a free £10 voucher ! damn cheek!

Finally, I've been busy today starting afresh with my money spreadsheet. Trying to keep things simple but also keep track as best I can - hopefully to the last penny. wonder how I will get on with this?

chickywiggle

well done on sending the books back.

I've given up 'saving' not 'splurging' until January. I figured Christmas will have to go on the card. Hubby's grand is still to pay back so although I am not spending silly (I didn't by the book I want as it's £5.99 + postage) I'm refusing to count the pennies.

Flat_Eric

well I'm still waiting for the kindle books I sent back to be refunded. Hopefully the refund will hit my account in the next day or so. I'm guessing the best option is to stop browsing and actually read some of the books I own already! Although I don't think I can give up my daily fix of checking out the deal of the day as it might be something I've been waiting to read.... at a bargain price (20p!) (one can dream) but I will be more ruthlesss about whether actually buying the deal of the day is worth it...

Now I need to work on my food budget as overspends on that are being compensated by my overdraft. Not good.

Flat_Eric

I saw an advert for Now thats What I call musicals on tv the other evening - I was sorely tempted and under normal circumstances I would order it without a thought BUT I don't need it and to be honest its more clutter and less money in my bank account.

My usual trick at this time of year is to buy stuff and justify the purchases on the basis that I usually get some xmas pennies so I'm buying gifts for me in anticipation of money to be received except of course I buy the gifts, get the money but buy more gifts instead of paying off what I've bought arleady !! not clever!

I think as well as my saveometer, I'm going to start a spend o save o meter which will a record of those spends I don't make meaning money saved ! :T that seems like a daft name suggestions welcome!

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Rainy day fund saveometer £0.00/£1000.00
spend o save o meter £13.00