How to save money within reason

Horace

Fusspot - colleges are cheaper places to have your hair done. I go to my local college for my roots, cut & blow dry - it costs me £25, I see a graduate stylist which means I am not in there for hours on end.

Why not dip into those savings and clear your credit card that way your debt is cleared.

With Costa sign up for a loyalty card - I have friends that use Costa all the time and when they pay they present the loyalty card too and I should imagine that every so often they get free coffee.

Saving can be easy - I have set up a standing order and pay money into my building society every month. Perhaps you could do something similar? The way I see it, is if it is not in your pocket or purse you can't spend it.

Instead of paying money to Ancestry UK, why don't you look at the National Archives website instead? it is free and you can find out all kinds of things and trace ancestors too http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

Do more cooking from scratch too instead of relying on expensive ready meals full of unhealthy additives. It isn't difficult to do especially if you meal plan. You could even make your own ready meals and freeze them - I live on my own and do this as I always cook more than I will actually eat so I portion up my dinners and freeze them for the times when I don't really feel like cooking.

bluebag

Maybe change the coffee habit a little and only go when you are meeting someone. If you are on your own then maybe go for a walk, visit an art gallery, library, local park, market or whatever and take a flask of coffee on those days.

When you use the slow cooker, make double and freeze in ready meal sizes to have your own, cheap 'ready meal' . Occasionally have the poor mans meal of soup and bread or beans on toast . Small cuts to the budget soon add up.

Fusspot

I have used the demotivator on here, its quite a revelation. I've also looked at Martin's piggy banking advice, to create different bank account for different savings and it looks a good idea but how do you limit the amount of accounts you open as it could go on forever with different things, has anyone tried this?

maman

As you said, your debts are minor compared with many people.


If the limited debts you have (cc and overdraft) are costing you then I'd definitely pay them off from savings and then work really hard to build up your savings again.


I think to maintain/prioritise your lifestyle of coffee shops and eating out (and I don't have a problem with that as it makes you happy) you need to be really strict with yourself in all other areas. I'd suggest that you put aside some time to cook for the freezer so that you don't buy any ready meals. If you really haven't much time then have a few simple/cheap meals like jacket potatoes with beans, omelettes or good old egg and chips! And then have a good look through your wardrobe and see if you can manage without buying any clothes at least until all your debts are paid off and your savings are back where you want them.


I think it's perfectly doable on your budget provided you prioritise your spending. Good Luck.

LV_Sue

Regarding your Ancestry membership - if you buy a copy/copies of the Family Tree Maker software it comes with 6 months free Ancestry membership. The programme is about £30 to buy so considerably cheaper to get Ancestry this way. As far as I know there is no limit to the number of times you can claim your free 6 months Ancestry membership with each copy of FTM purchased.

Brambleberry

Hi fusspot, if you are adept at using excel, you can create a spreadsheet with virtual pots of money in your budget.

I use a digital version and update it once a week by checking against statements and my spending diary. It is based on the method described by the economides family (Google) but they do theirs by hand. It probably takes me about a half hour at the start of each month, plus 15 minutes at the end of each week.
It helps to allocate all of my pay at the start of the month to different 'pots' including putting money into savings. Almost all the other cash stays safely in the bank until needed for its particular bill, except for a little pocket money in my purse.

It took a few months of more careful attention and gentle belt tightening for this to fall into an even keel as the pots for some annual/quarterly bills were emptied before they were filled up, but the surplus in other pots helped to smooth out the bumps without resorting to cc or overdraft.

Result: no nasty surprises and a small buffer of money in my current account for most of the year which meansI haven't been overdrawn for almost a year. :cool:

enjoyyourshoes

Hi

You need a 'REASON' to save :-

1. Have a clear objective (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic & time-bound)

2.Understand your total annualised costs & savings (to meet your objectives) (i.e. do a budget or similar) & ensure this is LESS than incoming money. (if not do a review to allocate LESS than income)
(DONT forget to include Christmas, Holidays, Birthdays, Savings, clothes etc as well as the boring stuff)
Consider reducing Coffee and putting that saving into interest bearing account, you'll be surprised how much it adds up over the year

3. Break budget into two part (part one: monthly costs) (part two: 1/4ly ; 1/2LY & annualised bills. This annualised £'s should be divided by 12 to produce a monthly cost to save for these bills. Can do a cash flow to ensure monthly savings pot has enough £ to pay allocated Bills on the estimated months they become due) Include Christmas, Birthdays & clothes

4.Produce a monthly reconciliation which has your income LESS all your costs (including the monthly savings described above), Cash withdrawals, monthly DD & SO, cheques cashed, credit card purchases & savings (linked to your objectives). Do this reconciliation daily and ensure you spend LESS than income.

5. If you dont deduct credit card payments off your monthly income then you will not have the £'s to repay and thus end up in DEBT.

5. Put your monthly savings into a high interest account and track allocated savings against costs. Also DONT PAY insurances by monthly credit agreement pay them annually.

6. Get online access for your current and other accounts so you can see your separate reconciliation is accurate and moving monies is less hassle on line

7. Produce Excel docs to assist or you can do all these manually too

Then you can be confident that you have enough money left for Christmas etc.

GreyQueen

Hi Fusspot, your life isn't too different from mine but I have £900 pcm with fixed bills coming in at £500, so have an elective spend of £400 as opposed to yours at £520.

Lots of good advice here, but a few thoughts;

1. You mention busfares. Is your journey walkable or pushbike-able? Both are healthy and would save you money. If you can ride a pushbike but simply don't have one at present, you can often get them for free for asking around or for as little as £20 secondhand. It would be very easy to spend £30+ a week riding the bus to and fro work within this city, busfares are extortionate, IMO. Plus a mate of mine switched from walking to work to riding the bus and gained 10lb in weight in two weeks; she went back to walking and off it came again.

2. Could you reduce your lunchtime coffeeshop habit with your pal to 2-3 times a week and do something else with your time with her? It's perfectly possible that she'd welcome a chance to save some money and do something different, too.

3. Re eating out regularly, it isn't something which personally floats my boat, but could you look at reducing the frequency, using Clubcard or other offers to offset the costs? For things I do like, I find a bit of self-imposed rationing sweetens the experience when I do indulge, whereas regularity can stale it.

4. Re clothes-buying, if you do this regularly, you almost certainly have a lot of stuff which you don't get to wear. There are only so many hours in the day, after all. Could you think about having some time with your wardrobe and working out some new and fresh combinations of outfits from what you already have? Or having a swopping party with mates, to ring the changes without ringing the tills?

5. Christmas and birthdays come around once a year and we're mostly shopping for the same people. Instead of trying to fund it all out of Nov and Dec's payslips, could you look at shopping for presents throughout the year, so that when we're at this time of year, you're nearly done and your budget is left unravaged? I have a lot of family birthdays in this quarter, so have done this all my life and it truly makes things easier.

6. Your debts are very modest and easily conquerable, but your £1,220 a month is £14,640 per annum and your savings are only £800, which is about only £100 above your monthly outgoings on bills.

I'd be very worried about having such a small cash cushion in event of illness or unemployment. Our local authority is taking months to get HB into payment, or to change claims, so you could still be in trouble if you were out of work and needing to claim And if you have a second bedroom, you'd be stung for the bedroom tax element.

Even if you have to replace a major appliance, you're going to gouge a big hole in an £800 savings pot. HTH.

calicocat

Fusspot wrote: »

I have used the demotivator on here, its quite a revelation. I've also looked at Martin's piggy banking advice, to create different bank account for different savings and it looks a good idea but how do you limit the amount of accounts you open as it could go on forever with different things, has anyone tried this?

Yep, I have different bank accounts for different things.

I have...

Normal current account.
Another current account for bills (money goes in every month from other one)
An isa...(rainy day/retirement fund)
A saving for house repairs acc.
A car acc, saving for new car/repairs/ins/tax etc.

Oh....and the cat has an account for things she needs etc....:D.

GreyQueen

I hope the cat doesn't have a debit card on her account, calicocat. I'm sure some of the little beggars are sharp enough for online shopping. I've met cats which make me very glad that they only weigh about 4 kilos and don't have opposable thumbs.

Gosh, but for those advantages, we'd be nothing but slaves in a cat-dominated world.........uh-oh, I think we might have lost that battle already.:rotfl: