The 'Save 12k in 2014' Thread!

bigbadbear

cydney65 wrote: »

Taking a break for a while...we lost our cat Cydney last night and we are devastated.

Sorry about Cydney x

skyblueshez

Sorry to hear your sad news Cydney.


I'm having to declare for March, it's my insurance/ MOT/ breakdown cover month so I knew I wouldn't have a lot of pennies left to save at the end of it. Managed £165 which is below my target of £250 per month but I'm pleased with that. Hopefully April will be less painful!

Wentthedaywell?

Just £350 this month. It's been an expensive one, I've bought a new oven, house insurance and travel tickets in advance.

I feel in a bit of a spendy mood, tbh and feel I need to spend a bit on renewing stuff at home. I knew this year would be a tough one if I wanted to save and pay off my mortgage and I've hit that wall.

However, I've set up a new AVC in addition to my existing pension. Even if it doesn't make any money I am saving, as it is tax-free paying in and also when I eventually take it out as a lump sum. I've counted this £400 in my savings, though it's actually £500 with the tax advantage (oops, that means I've actually got negative savings this month as I've only saved £350 overall !).

I hope everyone else is stashing it away - a quarter of the year gone already!

Farel01

Paid my car and home insurance in advance. Managed to make my £650 renewal quote £250 (inc cash-back), but cash-back isn't in yet,

DH keeps having to go on expensive business trips and the expenses are paid at the end of the month so it's been a little tight. However the business trips are a perfect excuse for me to come along to Barcelona for a few days and make use of the free hotel

So this month will be £390, kind of behind on my goal, but should improve in the next few months.

lalman

I am the same Farel01 - i wasted 500 quid on various random nonsense (3 stag doos) that i got angry at myself about... but hey ho. You live and learn. So saved £685.50... falling behind but going to have a really good April... got £3750 coming in and paid for alot of stuff already over the next month... then will be more careful after that.

Wentthedaywell?

Wentthedaywell? wrote: »

Just £350 this month. It's been an expensive one, I've bought a new oven, house insurance and travel tickets in advance.

I feel in a bit of a spendy mood, tbh and feel I need to spend a bit on renewing stuff at home. I knew this year would be a tough one if I wanted to save and pay off my mortgage and I've hit that wall.

However, I've set up a new AVC in addition to my existing pension. Even if it doesn't make any money I am saving, as it is tax-free paying in and also when I eventually take it out as a lump sum. I've counted this £400 in my savings, though it's actually £500 with the tax advantage (oops, that means I've actually got negative savings this month as I've only saved £350 overall !).

I hope everyone else is stashing it away - a quarter of the year gone already!

Oh dear, since posting that, I've bought a new summer coat, a cooker hood, and a weekend in France in June. So not only have I not saved this month, I've dipped into last month's savings.

Still, still time to make up for it.

[Deleted User]

cydney65 wrote: »

Taking a break for a while...we lost our cat Cydney last night and we are devastated.

So sorry to hear that Cydney, I know how hard it is to lose a beloved pet. Take care, sending hugs.

[Deleted User]

Payday for OH and me this week so will post my March savings at the end of the week. I hope everyone is getting on ok.

JoJoC

I'm looking forward to payday on Friday- hopefully I can hit the £2k mark!

eklipze

Well that's March payday done and £1052.41 put into ISA which fills it for this year. Total for this year is now £2698.43 which makes the deposit currently just over £7K.

First couple of months of the year are always strongest due to Xmas/New year oncall so will now level off for the rest of the year.

Still I have forecast about £7K altogether in 2012 plus £1,200 aside for Christmas and Car Insurance. So now need to shrink monthly bills and expendeture to try and get the other £5K.

Slowlyfading has now added me to the spreadsheet admin so I can make any tweaks that we want. Thoughts? The original point was the colour coding on Column E doesn't really work. I've a couple of thoughts to make it better but what do we think ?

My first idea was that % Saved (overpaid on spreadsheet) is 8.33% each month, so this could be colour coded based on that ?
Also each monthly payment could be colour coded against what the monthly save should be (total/12)

I like the idea of colour coding or RAGing (Red Amber Green) as it gives me a guide overall, however it should only be a guide and if people think this would act in a negative way we should probably ingnore altogether.

Ideas ?