New year, new resolution...a savings journey 4 January 2013 at 8:21PM edited 4 January 2013 at 10:24PM in How much have you saved? 9 replies 1.7K views

cydney65

So here I am on the savings board at the beginning of a new year and my resolution is to save.

Yes, I am in debt, but this is on a 0% credit card which I am paying off at £100 a month. It should be paid off by the end of the current offer in Sept this year. I know that it is generally not a good idea to save whilst in debt but I really want to start a savings habit, not EVER having saved before, at the grand old age of 47!

I don't have a target just a desire to start saving as much as possible. The money may have to go towards my eldest daughter's trip to China next year though. She is doing a degree in Chinese studies and as part of the degree she needs to spend up to 6 months in China! She is being encouraged to save herself as well though as I don't want her to grow up without the saving habit I am hoping to acquire...

I'm also doing a degree with the Open University and this is my last year, so the money may also go towards this year's fee which is over £1000 eeek!

Any how, today I scoured the house and uncovered £17 yay! This has now been put into an instant access account. The interest rate is rubbish but I might need it at a moment's notice so I figured that this was my best bet. I have also opened an ISA with Principality and am putting £200 every month into it. This amount is literally killing me but no pain no gain right?!

So hello everyone, especially gothrockchic1 who's diary has inspired me, this is my journey :wave: trundles off to try and change her signature.

gothrockchic1

Good Luck with your savings!! I am glad my diary inspired someone else's.

cydney65

The day was going so well too...this morning I uncovered a load of DVDs to sell. I was going to put them on fleabay but as there are 23 of them, with the fleabay costs and the price of packaging I decided to look at Music Magpie-result £28.00! So I found a couple of boxes and I shall get them off on Monday. I couldn't bear to part with my Quentin Tarrentino DVDs or my copies of Sherlock, which I watch every month (I am a huge Benedict Cumberbatch fan!). So, great I thought that will bump up the old savings.

In addition, I decided last night that I would change my bank account over to the Halifax reward account, to take advantage of the £100 switch over money they hand out and the £5 per month. I couldn't complete the application on-line, probably due to the fact that I changed my name by deed poll some time back and I probably don't have much in the way of a credit file for this name. Okay, I thought, no problem I will go into the branch on Monday and go from there. So I dug out a couple of my current account statements to get proof of my ID and for the first time I actually looked at the totals of income and expenditure...they were vastly different in that my expenditure was more than my income.

Now when I had my 'lightbulb moment' at the tail end of 2008 I was in a lot of debt. I got my money under control, cleared my overdraft, reclaimed PPI and have now reduced my debt to around £800 (see my signature). I was evangelical about money saving, so to see these mismatched totals gave me a bit of a shock. I did a statement of affairs this evening, factoring in my Open University payments, which don't start going out 'til March-It said I was £77.00 short each month :eek: I've let myself slide BIG time! In fact I need a glass of something stiff...

Now I need to re-jig my plans. I have £1000 due to me soon, which I was going to put into my savings. It looks like I'm going to have to pay off my credit card completely so I would be debt free (:T). What ever is over-about £300-I can pay off my OU fees, reducing my monthly payments. I also need to cut spending on clothes 'cause I have tons already

So hopefully by the end of this month I will have £28 from MM and £100 from Halifax going into my savings account and I should have freed up £170 odd by paying off my debts and fees, enabling me to save some more. That's the plan. I joined the save 12K in 2013 challenge yesterday with a goal of £3000. Hopefully I'm still on track.

Right I'm off to juggle figures and ruminate on my statement of affairs.

cydney65

Well what a stressful day yesterday was. I rang up about the £1000 I was due this month and found out I could have it transferred to my bank account that day. In addition, it was £1200 so I was dead chuffed. The wait for it to hit my account was really difficult and took 7 hours! It showed in my account at 6pm and I immediately paid off the Barclaycard, so I am now debt free woo hoo.

I have now completed a new SOA, again incorporating the OU fees. It shows that with a real big effort I could be saving £280 a month but it will be tight. Some of that money will go into the instant access account in case of emergencies, the rest I shall put away in an ISA.

I sent off the music magpie stuff yesterday and I'm now on the look out for things to put on fleabay. I have looked at my beloved Sindy dolls, which are worth about £100 but I don't think I am that desperate yet! It would break my heart to sell them both. OH has sold some stuff so I shall pack that up today for her.

So the plan for the rest of the month is to open the Halifax current account with an online saver and fleabay what I can. I need to use what's left of the payout to pay some money off my eBay fee and I still need to get my catalogue credit limit reduced. I do enjoy this savings lark!

Robin_TBW

cydney65 wrote: »

I was going to put them on fleabay but as there are 23 of them, with the fleabay costs and the price of packaging I decided to look at Music Magpie-result £28.00!

£28 from Music Magpie!? I sold 10 items to them a few months back and got less than £5.

cydney65

Yep I was surprised as well. Just couldn't justify the hassle and expense of putting them on eBay. A couple were specialist films, arty farty stuff, which seemed to go for a bit more than the others.

I did go through my CDs last night and checked them out on MM but like you 10 of them came in at just over a fiver so I have decided against that. It's all swings and roundabouts with this money making lark!

gothrockchic1

Robin_TBW wrote: »

£28 from Music Magpie!? I sold 10 items to them a few months back and got less than £5.

Yes it is possible!! I got £35 in one go! It depends on what you were selling!

cydney65

So it's been a hectic few days. OH's MS has flared quite substantially and I've had to take over the running of the house and her personal needs-I'm her carer. I also have medical problems which I won't go into, but I've had to combine the morphine patches with some diclofenic over the last few weeks just to enable me to get out of bed. I asked for a repeat prescription of the diclofenic but as it's been a while since I last ordered them I have to speak to a doctor to get the go ahead for more. I hate dealing with doctors and having to go into my problems with one I don't know just so I can get what I need really bugs me...the hoops we have to jump through.

On a positive note I have managed to open an E-saver account with Virgin money without the need for ID. This evening I transferred the meagre amount I have saved so far (£21 yay!) to this account. When I get paid on the 14th I should be able to start transferring £80 a month into it. The interest rate isn't huge at 2% but it is better than the one I have at the moment and the best thing is it requires a bit of effort to transfer money out which acts as a deterrent to me if I feel like dipping into it.

We are both trying not to spend a great deal on food this month. After doing my SOA I noticed that we were jointly spending over £300 a month on groceries which is crazy for just the two of us. So we are living out of the freezer and stock cupboard for as long as we can. Today I had to spend out a little on carrots and parsnips but we are on target to spend just over £100 this month. This should mean I will be able to transfer the £70 saving to the Virgin account. I am also still saving £200 to an ISA each month, which means I am well on track for my £3000 savings target at the end of the year.

As to cutting down on my available credit, two of the three catalogue accounts have had the credit limits reduced from £1300 and £900 to £300 and £200 respectively. As to the other account, my request to close it seems to have been ignored. I shall try to close it again tomorrow. I also cancelled my subscription to Cinema Paradiso-which is like Lovefilm-so this has saved me £5.99 a month.

I am itching for this month to be over now, just so I can see how my new money managing strategy is working. I am determined not to get into debt again but I know my urge to spend will always be there, like any addiction!

cydney65

Well today I went into the Halifax to see if I could open a reward account. I was accepted for the account and for a credit card. I'm really pleased as it's the first time I have been able to get a mainstream account and credit card using my new name. I can now start building a new credit file. I got talking to the advisor and she told me she was claiming back some PPI from the Halifax using this site...says a lot about Halifax!

So, the £100 I received for switching has gone into savings already. I also opened up an online saver with Halifax which has now been funded with £40. This will go towards yearly bills such as insurance and vet bills. £70 has gone into my Virgin account as pure savings and £30 has gone to my local instant access account for clothing. Savings this month so far comes to £401. I am also waiting for some money from Topcashback and the money from Music magpie.

Blooming heck this savings lark is hard work!!!

cydney65

Spent this afternoon juggling money around as my new Halifax account is starting to get up and running. This means that I have had to split my current account money in half as I'm not sure which account the mortgage is going to come out of. There's just enough money to cover the payment in both accounts now, but I'm fretting.

I was also sorting out the money for shopping today. We've been extra tight with the money this month. So far spent £90 on groceries and not expecting to spend much more. We will be popping round to Aldi in the next week but we don't need much as will live out of the freezer/left overs etc. This is a great reduction from just over £300 a month and I have finally got the OH on side as she was a bit resistant to the idea of cutting back.

Had a major wobble today. I found out that the OU course I'm starting on Saturday has a recommended book. I looked it up on Amazon and the latest edition costs £30! A few months ago I would have said sod it and bought it, but new money savvy head said 'do I really need the latest edition?'. So I found the ISBN number for the fourth edition and Googled it! Found it on Abebooks for £5.95 including delivery + Topcashback. Job done. This has come out of my £20 entertainment allowance I give myself each month and means that I have enough left to grab lunch at a local pub next week for the both of us.

Looks like £416.10 is the total saving now for this month. I have put £100 extra away to go for yearly spends such as vets bills, haircuts, house insurance etc., but I'm not counting that in my savings total. OH got a great deal on buildings and contents yesterday. With cashback it came to £60 for the year, so £30 each. I shall have to amend the SOA accordingly...sad wotsit that I am!