Matt's money saving plan 2013 and beyond

Matt1977

In a nutshell, despite leaving a lowly paid part time supermarket checkout job for a better paid full time job in April 2012, there was a problem. The supermarket was a short walk away whereas the new workplace was over the other side of the city and I would have to use my car to get to it. The cost of diesel went from around £40 a month (if that!) to around £100/month. Despite the higher salary, it was eating into my savings.

Made permanent in October 2012 so on advice of IFA I ditched the stakeholder pension in favour of this civil service(ish) one. Started working overtime from that month, which meant I wasn't eating into my savings as much and a tide has been turned

Cut down on the monthly Direct Debits so now pay for a few things annually, such as contents insurance and TV licence.

Have £3255.44 in cash ISA and tomorrow (27th Oct) this will go up to £3,400.44. :cool: Want to get into the habit of putting all overtime earnings into the ISA so that I am not too reliant on overtime earnings should this cease.

Currently living in a flat on my own. Rent is £510/month. Circa 42% of my take home pay. However, it looks like I could be moving into a newly renovated house to be shared with my sister. If things go to plan, we may be able to rent the house for less than a private rented studio flat each. The house is in my sister's preferred area and is quite convenient for my commute, so hopefully less diesel expense there. The ultimate goal is to save up for a deposit for the 'forever' home, quite possibly in that same area.

Meanwhile my other sister's husband has donated a lot of his old clothes to me. He buys a lot of nice stuff, wears them a few times, rinse and repeat. I think he would benefit with a lot of MSE advice tbh. Looks like I will not be needing many new clothes until 2018!

Bar footwear. I need some new black trainers as the tread on my current Nikes are bald and it gets quite slippy on wet pavements. :eek: