The 'Save 12k in 2014' Thread!

115K

Happy Birthday Cydney.:)

sparrer wrote: »

This week's grocery bill totalled £14.93, 7p under budget. Have enough of everything to last for two weeks and as I'm away for a week looks like this month will be well in budget, so hopefully I'll be able to put away a little more than a months savings

Wow, you are very frugal.:T

Speedster2

Just updated my total for February on the spreadsheet, up to £1994 now I am sending off a cheque to my cash ISA holder today to complete the 2013/14 subscription so things are looking on track. Have an urge to use some previous years savings to use the Stocks part of my ISA allowance. I have never done this before so I'm nervous about possible losses. I don't have any issues leaving the money there for 5 years or so. Thoughts?

ShootForTheMoon

Looks like savings might take a hit this month...
A horrible squeaking noise has just developed in my clutch...
Estimates to fix it are coming in between £600 and £900 :eek:

Not good news - but glad I'm now in a situation where I have savings to fall back on rather than having to fall back on overdrafts and credit cards!

IntriguedUser

Update:

It's march 14th, and shamefully I have saved nothing. I earn at LEAST £1400 after tax, and have no bills as such.

Give my mum £100 a month, £42 gym membership, £12 phone bill

Why can I not save!?!?!?

I know why, it's payday loans like WONGA/QUICKQUID, I'm getting too comfortable, last 2/3 months I've had £700-900 in payday loan repayments because I know it's there! I need to stop!

I'm going to try and save £250 this month, I have been reading through the posts again and realised why I initially started and joined and the motivation is back!

This month 27th March I will AGAIN have £950 of payday loan repayments, they're very addictive, I always pay on time, money isn't an issue, I need to cut em out!

LealeaV

Hello folks! How we all doing this month? I haven't had chance to update or read up on how everyone is doing in this challenge so far this month! Think I might try and catch up over the weekend!

So here's my February (better late than never) update!

Standing order - £500.00
Regular Saver - £250.00
Online Saver - £240.64

Total - £990.64

I've done better than expected this month, considering the car service, brake pads, house insurance and also some house decoration works!

I'm hoping to do a bit better on my next update! Just need to keep a close beady eye on my food spends - it is just ridiculous how much I seem to spend in Mr A!

Anyway hope you all have a good month and will be back in a couple of weeks to update again... now where did the first half of March go???

TrustyOven

IntriguedUser wrote: »

Update:

It's march 14th, and shamefully I have saved nothing. I earn at LEAST £1400 after tax, and have no bills as such.

Give my mum £100 a month, £42 gym membership, £12 phone bill

Why can I not save!?!?!?

I know why, it's payday loans like WONGA/QUICKQUID, I'm getting too comfortable, last 2/3 months I've had £700-900 in payday loan repayments because I know it's there! I need to stop!

I'm going to try and save £250 this month, I have been reading through the posts again and realised why I initially started and joined and the motivation is back!

This month 27th March I will AGAIN have £950 of payday loan repayments, they're very addictive, I always pay on time, money isn't an issue, I need to cut em out!

Yikes! Just stop using them. That's 950 a month you could be sticking in a savings account instead....

IntriguedUser

TrustyOven wrote: »

Yikes! Just stop using them. That's 950 a month you could be sticking in a savings account instead....

It's not as easy as you say, I'm going to have to though, especially as you've put it that way too!

Twiggy_34

IntriguedUser wrote: »

It's not as easy as you say, I'm going to have to though, especially as you've put it that way too!

It's definitely best to cut them out fully as soon as possible, but if you're not quite in a position to do that so easily perhaps you can graduate away from them, i.e. reduce the amount by say £100 a month until you can do without. I don't think we need to tell you how bad the idea of using them is, but as soon as you can balance things out the money can start going into savings and then you can fall back on the savings in an emergency. A friend of mine always used to be excessively dependant on her c/card and it was a real battle to get her to realise that if she was good for just a few months she could get into a position of using the £50 a month she was paying to card into a savings account and build up a pile of cash for use in an emergency.

Can you find a way to transfer the "debt" to an interest fee credit card so that you can instantly stop being dependant on the pay day loan and clear the £950 gradually over the interest free period of the c/card?

JoJoC

If it's too hard to get out of the £950 payday loan cycle, why don't you cut it by half next month so that you then just owe £475 ten the following month cut it completely then you can start from scratch.

If you get paid £1400, have minimal bills and still spending £950 payday loans on top, maybe a spending diary to look at your lifestyle and where all your money is going might help?

If you saved that £950 every month for the rest of the year you could have over £8,000 by December! Surely that's incentive enough?

nomemory

IntriguedUser wrote: »

Update:

It's march 14th, and shamefully I have saved nothing. I earn at LEAST £1400 after tax, and have no bills as such.

Give my mum £100 a month, £42 gym membership, £12 phone bill

Why can I not save!?!?!?

I know why, it's payday loans like WONGA/QUICKQUID, I'm getting too comfortable, last 2/3 months I've had £700-900 in payday loan repayments because I know it's there! I need to stop!

I'm going to try and save £250 this month, I have been reading through the posts again and realised why I initially started and joined and the motivation is back!

This month 27th March I will AGAIN have £950 of payday loan repayments, they're very addictive, I always pay on time, money isn't an issue, I need to cut em out!

Hi Intrigued User!..my income and bills are almost exactly the same as yours! I got a new job last year and I just kept finding things to spend all of my disposable pay on. I was genuinely awful with saving.

This year I vowed to save as much as I could for a deposit (cause to be honest moving back home has been quite testing after renting my own place for so long.) After bills and keep I now live on about £150 a month..thats for food, travel, clothes, going out etc. Its very difficult at times but it definitely can be done

My only advice would be to maybe try to have a month of frugal-ness as it sounds like you are living a month behind yourself. Give yourself a month to get yourself back on track where you dont feel like you need you take out such a large payday loan. The result will be you having alot more free income come payday and a nice feeling too

Good luck :cheesy::cheesy: