The Emperor's Saving Diary

Emperor2014

Hi all,

I am new here and, motivated by all you amazing savers, I've decided to start this diary to help me with saving. I hope that you can all keep me to account and motivated to reach my goal.

My money balance is -£2 but pay day is soon approaching. My goal is to save enough money for a house deposit, to move out and possibly to do a Masters. And although I would like to buy outright rather than take out a mortgage, I have not yet figured out how I could buy a house/flat outright... although I have a plan hatching

So here are the rules I have set for myself:

1. No more buying cofee. I was spending a small fortune on buying cofee and this has to stop. I am going to replace coffee with tea (much cheaper) as I will soon no longer have access to Waitrose (you are able to get a free coffee there every morning!).

2. I'm going to start making lunch from home - any recipes would be much appreciated! :T

3. To save 60% of my monthly income by living uber-frugally :eek:

4. To curtail the giving or lending of any money to family members. They are cleaning me out atm :mad:

Here is to new beginnings :beer:

Emperor2014

What I am finding really difficult is setting a target or limit for myself. I don't know quite how much will be 'enough' for a house deposit and that is mainly because I have not decided what sort of house I am looking to buy.

Some other aims/goals:

- To not being paying rent by the time I am 25. In other words, to own my own house. To have fully paid any mortgage off by the time I am 35, if I don't figure out a way to buy outright.

- To be increase my income/salary every two years (reasonable). I have no intention of working my butt off for measly wages on which I can barely survive, let along save or prosper. I want to be earning £60,000 by the time I am 30 - I have 8 years to achieve that target and I think it is very do-able. I shall seek out and sell my labour to the highest bidder.

- I am 22 and I don't intend on working for all of my life. The pension age has been raised and by the time I reach my mid 60's/early 70's the pension age may even be in the 80's (I reckon) :eek: So I will either need to have alternative sources of income other than the sale of my labour (working) which require the least expenditure of effort, or figure something else out.

For me this isn't just saving... its me trying to figure out my life and hopefully I will do it!

Emperor2014

Start of diary.

Today I've managed to stick to my budget and i've not spend anything yet. (hurray!). But tomorrow I will likely be incurring £5 of unforseen costs which I will have to factor into my budget and take my £20 'unforseen costs' fund.

Emperor2014

So today i've incurred £7.10 of unforseen cost. But this wil be coming out of my unforseen circumstances fund/budget so I am still on target and within budget.

I do have a >£200 debt that I need to repay and I think that I will have repay this over a 12 month period so that I can take it in small amounts out of my unforseen costs fund @ £17 per month. If that works out as I hope then that shouldn't affect my budget/target too much.

MotiMoo

Hello Emperor2014

Welcome to the savings board! I've just started diary on here too

Perhaps you could tell us a little about your budget, how much you plan to save?

Good luck and keep us posted

Motimoo

Emperor2014

Hi MotiMoo, thanks for your comment! I have seen your thread and i've read every post - so insightful!

I would rather not state absolute figures but my intention is to save 60% of my monthly income and I am trying to reduce my costs further so that I will ultimately be able to save 75% of my income.

The way I do this is my moving 75% of my wage as soon as I get paid into my savings account. I am then left with 25-40% of my salary to spend as I have determined in my budget. I also have 'funds' for various possible costs, so that I don't have to dip into my savings. For example, I have the following paper funds into which I 'pay' amounts each month:

- A food shopping fund, which I top up on a monthly basis.

- A clothing fund, to be used exclusively for the purchases of clothing.

- An unforseen circumstances fund which I top up by £25 each month.

- Toiletries & haircut fund.

etc.

Any money that remains in those funds (accumulated through monthly underspends) is at the end of the year transferred into my savings account and tops up my savings. Any underspends can also be used for any unforseen costs.

Emperor2014

A few achievements so far

1. I used spend too much money on coffee (2,3 a day, £2.50 per coffee) and I needed to stop. I started having small coffees, instead of medium/large and changed to an independent establishment (£0.65 per coffee). A few weeks later I cut back the number of cofees I have and limited myself to 1 a day, at £0.65. And now I have discovered the Waitrose membership card (free) which entitles you to a free coffee/tea every day (you do not have to buy anything). So now I still enjoy quality coffee at £0 per day... and the fact that it is a coffee that is wholly free of charge makes it taste just that bit better!
2. I've changed my mobile phone contract as soon as my contract came to an end by threatening to leave, telling them that I had been made redundant and that I could no longer afford their contract in any case. So I negotiated an initial cost of £30-40 per month (24 months) to a rolling contract of £10 per month which I can now cancel at any moment.
3. I used to have hot lunch almost every day (£4-5 per day). I now have sandwiches (£1.05) per day. From this week onwards I'm taking lunch from home!
4. I obtained through some serendipity and deviousness a student card, which reduced the cost of my bus pass from £500 per year to £260.
5. I stopped my Gym membership. Saved me £20 per month or £240 per year.
6. I also cut my swimming membership which saves me another £240 a year! And all these relatively small amounts all add up. :j

I'm always on the look out of other ways I can save money. And i've come to the conclusion that i'm stil not frugal (my new favourite word I can't stop saying) enough. I do sometimes slip up and buy a £1.50 coffee when I know I shouldnt and I do every so often buy hot lunch when I know I shouldn't. By being more strict with my weekly food shopping and NOT buying coffee or hot lunch, I reckon I can save another £1,000 per year. By reducing my costs I have gone from being able to save £200 monthly to being able to save 60% of my monthly income. My target is to save £75% of my monthly income and I will see how that goes next month.

In total I reckon i will save £1000's per year, if not more.My new motto: respect your money, respect yourself! Uber-frugal living FTW. :T House deposit, here I come! :T:money:

Emperor2014

O.k an update... today was payday! :j

I've managed to put away 54% of my salary :eek: after paying off another debt :T I fell short of the 60% aim but I am now officially debt free :T other than my student loans on which I am paying off the interest each month so that the principal doesnt increase, interest rates are very low and inflation/the time value of money will mean that it gradually decreases (in real terms) over time

I bought lunch today, cost me £6 :eek: so on that front i'm not pleased with myself but I've got a whole month to make that up, so I will go forward with a positive attitude. Upward and onward to bigger and better things! And I've got a job interview lined up so if I do get the job that will be a 20% pay increase... God willing it will work out!

But I'm quite pleased overall, a good start to the month!

bugslet

Well done emperor. Don't beat yourself up for falling short of your 60% target, a lot of people in your age bracket aren't saving or able to save and certainly not to that amount. Well done:T

Emperor2014

I will try to update the diary tomorrow but I have sort of been avoiding doing it as i've had a very undisciplined week, I have spent extravagantly :mad:

I'm so embarrased by how out-of control my spending has been this week that I darn't even say the amounts I've spent. Suffice to say that my entire food budget for the MONTH (January) has gone... today's date: 03.01.2014 :eek:

And I do not really regret it. I've had a really tough week, and despite everything I've still saved a great preportion of my income this month.

I also know exactly what I did wrong... I'm a big offender on buying everything on my debit card, which means I easily lose track of how much I've spent and on what. So what I though was a reasonable thing to do was to take out my food budget for the month from the bank and to keep it in cash so that I could restrict and limit myself... boy how wrong I was. It has ALL gone, within a week. And unfortunately, that is how bad I am with money But I did learn how I could control my spending. One day this week I was tempted to buy 'things', right, but unfortunately I had left my debit card at home :T I had already spent all the cash I had on me and had budgeted for that day. So that meant that, despite my temptations, I could not spend any money because I had NONE on me and no way of getting hold of any. So, I had no choice but to bugrudgingly eat my packed lunch and be good :T

So I now know what the solution to my problem is. And I also appreciate just how much money I ordinarily USED to waste. I am determined to improve and to respect my money!

Emperor2014

bugslet wrote: »

Well done emperor. Don't beat yourself up for falling short of your 60% target, a lot of people in your age bracket aren't saving or able to save and certainly not to that amount. Well done:T

Thanks Bugslet! Between 60-75% is the absolute maximum of my income that I could save, but I think I was too ambitious too soon. Hopefully as I get to grips with this money saving way of life, I shall become better at it.