How to fall in love with saving money

cathybird

jamesd wrote: »

Open Office hasn't been discontinued, just renamed to Apache Open Office by a vote of developers in 2012. All rights to trademark and source code were transferred to Apache in June 2011 and Apache Open Office 3.4 was released in May 2012.

Looks as though some of the forks are sitting on the OpenOffice.org page at Wikipedia to try to get themselves promoted instead of just having the old name go to the new one, which is what happens when you go to the real openoffice.org site.

Thanks jamesd - useful to know.

cathybird

gallygirl wrote: »

:T Mucho admiration :T. I've around the same number (plus a few others but they're basically just lists so haven't counted them) but I have btl properties to run.

On a day to day basis I often don't know what is in my main bank account. I do however know what is due to be in there on the day before payday which is what matters to me. £16.66 this month .

I have a page with DD's and regular savings listed and link these through to the main banking sheet so they're all shown as coming out till the end of the tax year. I have wages coming in and a set amount of spends each week. I add work expenses when due. Also use it as a little financial diary to remind me to cancel things etc.

I regularly update with transactions and embolden those appearing on online banking. Balance gets rounded down to nearest pound and the pennies 'Tilly Tidied' over to another account that I make mortgage overpayments from.

I work in a finance related co and we use spreadsheets a lot for work. It amazes me how often people will check their balances on line then work out what's still to come out on paper and when I suggest a budgeting sheet they think I'm crazy . So I keep quiet about my mortgage overpayment workbooks with daily interest calculations (had to get rid of the hourly ones as takes ages to save as it is ), projected pay-off date on each mortgage, date savings > mortgage, combined pay-off date etc. Plus my little excel house where I colour in a brick with every 1k paid off :rotfl:.

I don't however breakdown my weekly budget into food, treats etc but all clothes, lunches out etc come from a separate budget and are monitored, as is diesel (£1764.08 since April :eek:).

Gallygirl, very impressed by you too. I've never done anything like this but it sounds like an eminently practical and useful way of doing it. I did use Budgetbrain on the MSE site to work out my expenses. The fact that I've gone over budget is not because that was inaccurate - it was because I haven't stuck to my (fairly luxurious, as far as I can judge) food budget anyway.

Another interesting fact emerging from this food budget, and this ought to be obvious but I suspect to many people isn't, is that you tend to settle into habits of thinking that reflect the people you surround yourself with, and that is one of the many reasons why the forums on MSE are so very, very useful. Hanging around here with you guys means I'm talking about budgets and spending my time with people who think constructively about how they spend. If you don't hang round with people who do that you don't think about it so much. Your ways of thinking are always coloured by the way your mates and circle of acquaintances think. If they act a certain way you tend to think "oh that must be all right then, if they do that." If you move jobs and go to a place with a completely different work culture, or you change your circle of friends, your way of thinking changes along with it - sometimes imperceptibly, you don't even notice it happening, but it still happens. To get into the habit of thinking about cutting back and saving - to fall in love with saving, in other words - one of the very best things you can do is hang round with people who are also in love with saving

davenport151

Hi cathybird - just catching up on your thread! Its a pleasure to read.
Just wanted to offer my input.
The trouble with shopping budgets is they can be up and down. I can go a week or two low on spend then suddenly its all over the place. Sometimes its due to planning - I forget i need snacks if hubby and son are going to the footie for example. My budget is eactly that - if i go over I take some out of my spends money.
It can really make you mad when you go over budget though. But a realistic one does help. You do have to take advantage of those special offers of cereal though! Its pG teabags in my case though!

My system of seeing my money grow is I use an account named month called extras - Any money I make on surveys, vouchers or if really lucky get given -this goes in here. At the end of the month its swept aside to savings.

In regards to baking bread and the like I work part time so these things are easier for me. It is easy to get yourself into a system though. If your meal is cooking and you are in the kitchen anyway its easier to set something up.

cathybird

davenport151 wrote: »

Hi cathybird - just catching up on your thread! Its a pleasure to read.
Just wanted to offer my input.
The trouble with shopping budgets is they can be up and down. I can go a week or two low on spend then suddenly its all over the place. Sometimes its due to planning - I forget i need snacks if hubby and son are going to the footie for example. My budget is eactly that - if i go over I take some out of my spends money.
It can really make you mad when you go over budget though. But a realistic one does help. You do have to take advantage of those special offers of cereal though! Its pG teabags in my case though!

My system of seeing my money grow is I use an account named month called extras - Any money I make on surveys, vouchers or if really lucky get given -this goes in here. At the end of the month its swept aside to savings.

In regards to baking bread and the like I work part time so these things are easier for me. It is easy to get yourself into a system though. If your meal is cooking and you are in the kitchen anyway its easier to set something up.

Thanks davenport151 In fact I do have quite a bit of food in the freezer now from my spend this month so may well be able to stretch it to next month if I plan carefully. So there may be fewer "ups" next month, in other words. On the other hand, it's December and I'm going abroad for a few days, so who knows :rotfl:

The bread thing is actually very simple with a machine to do it for me and I don't have too many excuses not to do it. It's now out on the bench where I can see it and I plan to use it all the time over the coming months.

I'm actually not too fussed about the budget ... it was an experiment this month, one that didn't work, and I'll rethink it as I keep going with this savings thing to the point where I do get it to work. It's annoying, but I'll build on it. :A

cathybird

I have to say the plan to take my own lunch to work instead of buying it is going well. The cottage pie I made this week is absolutely delicious. With all these recipes I should have a crack at working out how much they cost per portion. Our canteen is subsidised but I still reckon my own efforts will be cheaper.

WantToBeSE

Hi again cathy

If you like to join challenges, then feel free to join my 'November 2013 Lunch Too Work' thread. It's only small, there are about 10 of us doing it, but it keeps me on track.
I was buying breakfast AND lunch before deciding that i was being stupid and should have breakfast BEFORE i went to work, nit in the car after grabbing something from tesco..oops!

cathybird

hi WantToBeSE - I used to do the same! Buy a sandwich from Pret plus fruit, and sometimes a cookie, then I'd buy lunch later from somewhere else. It would cost me sometimes up to £15, I reckon. I'll join your challenge with great pleasure, thanks for letting me know about it

Eco_Miser

cathybird wrote: »

The budget was really based on the fact that if I only allow myself £30 per week for food I should be able to clear £1,000 for savings from my monthly pay packet. I like the idea of saving £1,000 a month and I still reckon it's achievable but there are probably other ways I can also go about it.

It should be do-able, but you need time to adjust to not buying instant food, and preparing it in advance yourself.

cathybird wrote: »

Very curious about this, Eco Miser, as I have been thinking I should go and see a financial adviser myself, to plan for retirement basically. Any advice or pointers about how to go about finding one or how you found the experience of seeing one? ...

First, remember the name is a misnomer, they don't advise on all financial matters, rather they sell investments and pension funds, and tax planning. They charge fees, so their advice is expensive if you don't have lots of money (several tens of thousands minimum) for them to advise on.
Second, if you do go to one, find an Independant Financial Adviser, not one employed by a bank or other financial institution. There are a number of threads about FAs and IFAs and the difference betwen them and what they can do for you, on this very board. IFAs also contribute to many of the threads about investments. http://www.unbiased.co.uk/ is one place to look for an IFA.
Of my own experiences, the recommendations weren't terrible, but they didn't match what would be expected from extrapolating the past performance graphs either.:(

For retirement planning, look on the pensions board first, get some ideas.

cathybird

Eco_Miser wrote: »

For retirement planning, look on the pensions board first, get some ideas.

What a very good suggestion, I will go and do that very thing.

Re "instant food", you don't mean ready meals? :eek: I do cook from scratch Don't make my own pasta, but apart from that.

TheFactory

This is how I fell in love with saving this year

New years eve I challenged myself to pay off all my debts in 2013, I decided that I would get my head down, not refuse any overtime offered and although I would allow myself the odd night out I really decided to kurb my spending and basicly became quite boring (hard at 28!)

In January I looked at my spending through the month at everything other than direct debits and debt payments so just for fuel, food, travel, etc and came up with a figure. I then opened another bank account with a different bank and set a standing order into it for the amount I budgeted for spending money on payday. If I decide to go out, Ive got to spend less on food. This means ive been forced to live on 1/4 of my takehome pay. If Ive had to pay any bills such as car tax then this has came out of the other part of my wage, on payday whatever is left from the previous month gets swept into a web saver.

April I paid my Loan off

July I paid my card off

I now have more in savings than I have ever had before and its addicting watching the number rise! The only problem is I have found myself wishing the days away to payday, something Ive had to tell myself not to do.