How to fall in love with saving money

cathybird

YoungBusinessman wrote: »

Atush hopefully I can say that once I'm getting on a bit aswel holiday pay for 2 weeks and 2 weeks pay coming in next Friday, will be saving the whole lot, should be around £2,400ish as don't earn as much in winter. Starting to make great progress although I'm watching my money that badly I'm putting off the gfs Xmas until very last minute!! On Saturday it's a year since we bought our first house together, we have overpaid that much this year that instead of being down a year to 19 left, there's "only" 17 years and 3 months left now! Bring on more overpayments!

ha ha, as long as you don't leave the gf's present so late you end up buying her carnations from the petrol station :rotfl:I knew someone who bought his sister a 1 litre bottle of motor oil (unwrapped) for Christmas because he'd left buying presents till the very last minute. She was not pleased

YoungBusinessman

Well iv got her two small things already that she picked...she loves suprises but I'm terrible at picking presents for her. I will have hit my £15,000 goal a week tomorrow!! The money is already made and invoices in, just hope the money comes through! Been a tough year but wanting to step things up next year and go for more than £15,000! I'm on a day rate of about £290 a day just now, although it's weather depending. 290x300 days work next year = 87,000! No reason why I can't be saving £20k in a year if I can get income that high. Debt will be gone by end of next year if that is the case although I might keep something there just to help with credit rating.

Anyone else banging in the hours just now? I am but as of Xmas eve I'm off for 2 weeks. Might go back to work a day or two early see how I'm getting on financially nearer the time! Iv definitely got the bug now, love playing about with budgets and income forecasts. The difference over a year by doing an extra half hour -45 minutes a day is crazy.

cathybird

I'm certainly not getting that much time off over Christmas. It won't make any difference to what I bring in though because I'm on a wage. I was joking about the carnations, btw, YoungBusinessman - I know you wouldn't do that

cathybird

Got paid some expenses from work so that's straight in the pot ... another £105.

At this point I'm within £250 of £2000 for November/December, so should give it a go.

WantToBeSE

Morning All

I am not saving any £ in between now and January. Too much to do/buy for Christmas. Have almost finished though

Ending this year having saved £700 (after taking out £50 for my new boots). Cant wait to get started on my 'Save £600 in January' Challenge. Shoulld be possible, but quite tough, especially as my son has a birthday in January too

Go for it, Cathy, squeeze that £250 in before 2014

cathybird

WantToBeSE wrote: »

Morning All


Ending this year having saved £700 (after taking out £50 for my new boots). Cant wait to get started on my 'Save £600 in January' Challenge. Shoulld be possible, but quite tough, especially as my son has a birthday in January too

Go for it, Cathy, squeeze that £250 in before 2014

I'll try on the £250 - I might be able to do it. I'm going away for three days before Christmas and that won't be cheap. But I should try to see if I can think of something.

Re the £700 you've saved Yay WantToBeSE!!!! :beer::beer::beer: well done you

cathybird

I got up today with a hangover (work Christmas do last night, a few vokda shots too many) and am now trying to get my head round the details of my company pension plan - possibly not a great combination? It has to be done though. It's cold and dark today. Quite a good day for sitting in front of the computer thinking about money.

It turns out that I can make extra payments into my work pension - up to 15 per cent of my salary, which (if I've understood it properly despite my throbbing head) my employer would match - meaning with the tax advantages as well for every £100 I put in I will get an extra £200 on top. This makes it an absolute no brainer - there's no point my setting up my own personal pension, with all of the associates charges, when I should be able to sock away a good amount of money into the combination of my workplace pension and an S&S Isa (plus some cash into a decent account to round out the mix).

Also, I notice (I hope I'm not boring anyone reading this already - if so, feel free to help yourself to a vodka shot, it may help) that my workplace pension offers index trackers in among its (unfortunately fairly limited) selection of funds. There is a global index tracker and a UK All Share tracker, plus a UK short-term gilts tracker. That's good news. I'm getting closer here to coming up with a (hopefully) solid-ish investment plan.

See, there is a saver's brain somewhere in this head of mine, even if it is currently hurting.

cathybird

My Christmas preparations so far have cost me around £40 all up (food/cards etc), which is not bad. I plan to make it a pretty quiet sort of thing. I'm quite sure it's possible to spend less on Christmas than that, but it will do for this year.

I'll get a week off over the Christmas/New Year period and am looking forward to that more than I can say.

No further savings for the pot to report After Christmas I'm going to stop putting cash in the ISA and switch to an S&S Isa. All the savings will go to the 5% Nationwide account.

atush

With 3 boys age 19-22, and a Man and a Dog, plus essentials for me (ie wine lol) I spend more than 40 quid on the turkey alone lol.

I spent 200 last friday at Tesco (but there was a present and a Tesco gift card in there). I give the twins a gift card in their stocking as they are at Uni.

cathybird

yes, turkeys are expensive ... I am going to cook a nice piece of pork, which wasn't cheap, but it wasn't enormous either.

If you have three kids and a bloke (and a dog) then I'd expect it to be quite costly,atush I agree on the wine. I did buy some mulled wine spices today ... plan to mull the wine on the day itself.