My savings diary

Caseymoo · 2 January 2013 at 2:26PM

I have always had a job since being 13 years old, but always spent it too! Have been very lucky to have a supportive family who have never let me go without anything (not too sure this helped on the spending side) Moved in with my boyfriend when I was 17 and have always been self employed since then and found it hard to save any money just getting it in dribs and drabs. Also moving 5 times in 4 years didn't help even moved abroad for 9 months at one point. But we have been settled in our beautiful very cheap £400pm flat now for nearly a year. 2012 was the year where we decided enough was enough so we moved from a 3 bedroom large old house which ate money to a 2 bedroom new flat which is much nicer and £200 pm cheaper. I passed my driving test and in order to pay for the £2400 a year insurance we started buying and selling from carboots, we paid the insurance off and even paid for us and a friend to go away for a week in the med all inclusive!

very nice- still at this point no savings. So we both started university full time in September and had no idea how we were going to manage financially until I started a crafts business that took off like you wouldn't believe. So from September until December we managed to book a holiday just for me in jan (to meet my goddaughter) another holiday in July, pay for my car insurance in full got it down to £800

buy a samsung tablet, new laptop, printer etc did all of Christmas and saved £2000 all whilst being students! Nearly killed us living on borrowed sleep for a month or so but feels so goodto have earnt all that money and worked hard for it.

Now the real hard work begins on the saving part as we really want to go to New York for New Year it has always been something we have wanted to do and decided that 2013 will be the year

. However we don't want to touch our savings andbusiness is very quiet now Christmas is over getting around one order a week at the min for around £40 so about 20 proft which will of course be getting saved. Its also too cold for any carboots to be on so I really need to watch our spending and make sure those savings don't getdipped in to

. That's my main goal until April then from April its to start with the selling again and get saved as much as possible for our dream Holiday and also would like to have some more in the bank as a security blanket as we are 21 and 22 and have been together for 5 years nowso would be nice to start having a few adventures and having some money saved for our future

. Al tips and advice welcomed x

Caseymoo · 2 January 2013 at 4:01PM

Pay day 7th of Jan- Needs to cover 4 months of bills and rent.

(C also owed £1600 in grant money but not taking into account)
C-Loan-£1179
C-Bursary-£1500
D-Loan-£1306
D-Grant-£1083
Rent from Flatmate-£675
Total £5743

Essential Outgoings (4 monthly)
Rent £1640
Gas/Elec £244
Mobile-£240
Tv Lic- £37
Sofa-£100
Water-£80
Internet-£120
Petrol- £600
Food- £600
Haircuts and eyebrow waxes- £40
Presents-£80 (big families, always try and save in salesetc but have over budgeted here slightly)
Pocket money and Entertainment- £640
Road Tax-£150 foryear
Car Insurance- PAID
Total:£4571

woohoo better than i thought £1172 remaining (i think) really hope i can stick to this budget so that money can be saved

Money to come from extra earnings
Holidays-£3000
Savings-£2000