What Are Your Goals or Challenges for 2014

jim-jim

Morning everyone,
I was thinking what goals/challengers, I would like to set for our family for 2014.
What about you, what would you like to have a go at.

This is what I'm aiming to do.

1. Save Save Save!!
2. NEVER pay full price for anything, look for cheapest deals, discounts, money off coupons, vouchers, cash back, pay in points, source cheapest available.
3. Save £1 -£2. a week in saving stamps for the supermarket (also get staff discount) So that's Christmas food shopping sorted.
4. Save a minimum of £15.00 a week for Santa.
5. Save minimum £20.00 a week for the tin
6. Meal plan every week.
7. Average shopping at the moment is £90.00 a week for everything 6 peeps & 2 dogs, so aiming to reduce that. Budget is £450 a mth or £112. a wk
8. Not buy anything new unless totally unavoidable.
9. Get Hubby to grow more veggies, 2nd year at doing this so still trial & error.
10. Drill it into the teenagers heads to UNPLUG / TURN OFF chargers etc
11. Pay any insurance etc in full, to reduce number of DD each mth.
12. Any spare cash cash left in bank, before next pay day, transfer to a lockable tin under the floorboards

That's me done.
Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year :beer:

115K

1. Overpay mortgage to reduce it to £60,000.

2. Get emergency savings up to £10,000.

3. Stick to £300 a month grocery budget.

4. Don't buy any clothes for the whole year.

5. Pay off £750 credit card debt.

:A

System

My goal is to only spend my Debenhams gift vouchers when theres a sale on and not touch the money in my bank account since i'll be losing my sons Child Benefit in 12 months or so anyway.

Lilyplonk

Great idea to start thinking about New Year Resolutions ahead of time ........

One of mine has to be to continue working on my Garden and to make sure that this year it gets to a stage where there's 'something blooming' and to turn it into a space that is comfortable enough to sit out in when the whether is good. It was an absolute jungle when I first moved here 12mths ago - to the stage where the Landlords needed to bring in a team of 'garden weed/shrub clearance guys' who then (supposedly) put down some top soil and grass seed.

I also need to make sure that I keep on top of all my housework to stop my clutter taking over everywhere.

I'd also like to find a paid part-time job - retired 18mths ago - just to bring a little extra money into the household budget.

Need to stop impulse buying - perhaps to get out of the habit of taking 'Mr Plastic' out with me everytime ............. .


Looking forward to seeing what others have got planned for the New Year.

madvixen

Hubby has placed a bet with me for 2014 that I can't go a year without buying new clothes. Anything I buy over the year must come from Ebay (undies are excluded).

I'm quite looking forward to the challenge tbh.

My personal challenges are:
To declutter the house and keep it that way
To save/make £600 while hubby is away on deployment (to go towards our holiday when he returns)
To keep the monthly shopping bill below £150

tessie_bear

blimey i wish you all good luck with all that you are planning...mine are 2 fold;
1) do not buy any food from m and s its too expensive....did this last year and lasted until easter when i fancied some hot cross buns and it fell away from there really
2) drink no coffee...i havent had a single cup this year and plan to keep going

third is ongoing so dont count it is to keep keeping on with the grocery budget...i try strategies to keep it down every year and have a couple of new ideas for 2014

good luck

fiftyeighter_2

What a good idea to start this now and interesting pledges. I already save for Xmas, birthdays, vet bills etc etc. my problem is impulse buying. So this year I am going to

Try very hard to get my grocery bill down.
Think more carefully about what I,m growing in the garden.
NO impulse buying.
Get a bit more exercise, walk the dogs more, etc
And biggest of all. Be much more assertive to my part time ex.
I must I must I must get a life.
Good luck to you all.

gayleygoo

My goals are mostly to do with savings. This year we have just managed on what we have but if an unexpected bill comes it's such a dent. I want to plan financially properly this year, and keep savings for :
- next Christmas
- next winter's fuel
- passport renewal
- need to start an emergency fund
- holiday fund
- birthday present fund

Other goals include
- making a little extra money, maybe getting a part-time job or selling on eBay etc
- decluttering the house (:rotfl:)
- decorating the house a bit, mostly our bedrooms.

lushlifesaver

Ooh I had been thinking about this yesterday as I Christmas shopped.
Next year I will be on Mat leave for 6.5 months so on reduced pay (eek!)

Financial aims:
*Keep grocery budget at £100 or less per month (any extra going on a supermarket saving card towards Christmas - looking at doing this with ASDA)
*Add an additional £10 per month to the ASDA Christmas card (obviously joins up with number one - never used that kind of saving scheme/method before but think it will work for us...mainly because I will make it work!)
*continue to save £75 per month in my events/holiday fund BUT only use it for domestic tournaments costs (1 night in hotel plus one meal 3 times in a year) and birthdays plus Christmas
*once back at work next October I will save an additional £100 per month in a separate account towards the cost of baby and I going to watch OH compete if/when he gets selected to represent GB at Rio2016!
(*also IF I get a bonus then I will use half to pay a chunk off my PCDL and save half)

Non financial:
*meal plan and stick to it
*declutter - not just at ours but be really harsh/strong about what I keep and what I chuck out of what I have at my parents house/in their garage!
*bake from scratch more (once I have an oven)
*keep on touch of all cleaning/ironing!

Now to make a note somewhere I will see regularly to force myself to remember these!

WantToBeSE

Great thread, it's so interestint to see what other people are hoping to achieve!

i only have 3 but they are both biggies:

-Move house
-buy a better car
-Save for the above!

Archer0710

I love threads like these! I am a real planner so love this time of year!

Financial aims.

To pay off the remaining £12k of our debt! At current rare this is easily achievable it just depends whether I get sidetracked.

To save £4.5k to pay for my laser eye surgery

To keep our shopping bill under £300 (it's insane for just two of us)

To save £50 PCM for Christmas.

To save T€Sco saving stamps it's my safety blanket.

Non financial

To meal plan and shop by list!

To try to form a cleaning routine

To lose a stone