Roses' Savings Diary :)

TakeNoRoses

I'm 21 and I have a VERY big goal. :rotfl:

I currently live with my parents and aim to save £12,000 or more a year. My salary is very low (but I don't have any qualifications and I like my jobs).

Monthly Incomings 2015 (approximate/average):

• £650 1st job (currently taxed, but shouldn't be - will get tax rebate, then should be £800ish per month after NI)
• £250 2nd job
• £100 interest on p2p lending

TOTAL: £1,000

Other Incomings 2015:

• £1,200 bond maturing
• £1,000ish tax rebate
• £500 looking after kids, art commissions, Swagbucks, other
• £250 birthday/Christmas

TOTAL: £2,950

Total Incomings 2015: £14,950

Monthly Outgoings 2015 (approximate/average):

• £110 rent
• £7.50 phone (will be moving to GiffGaff pay-as-you-go once contract ends early '15)
• £30 pony (our 10th year together! :eek: )
• £10 other

TOTAL: £160 (rounded up)

Other Outgoings 2015:

• £200 car insurance
• £200 extra pony needs
• £200 unexpected
• £200 pony camp!
• £100 driving tests
• £50 Christmas spending

TOTAL: £950

Total Outgoings 2015: around £2,870. My target is to live on less than £3,000 a year.

So my Incomings (£14,950), minus my Outgoings (say £3,000) is £11,950, which means with careful budgeting I should reach my goal of £12,000 for 2015. :T

bugslet

Good luck TNR, that's an impressive goal there!.

What are you saving up for?

TakeNoRoses

Thank you bugslet!

I'm saving up for a variety of things, but my most important is to buy some land (2-10 acres), if I can eventually afford to build a sandschool, stables, etc and a house (dependant on whether I can get planning) then that's all good, but I want to start with just a bit of land first. *grins* *big goals*

TakeNoRoses

Okay, an update:

Once my 1st job money comes in I will have hit my target for this month! Factoring in rent and hay payments I have an excess of £29, which should mean I'm safe to say my target is hit (barring disaster).

I have decided to count my 2nd job money as it comes in (the month after I earn it), which is a little different to how I was doing my accounts before, luckily I made the difference up this Christmas (as I hoped I would).

So my basic incomings for January should be:
£675 1st job
£400 2nd job
£95 P2P interest
£50 Zopa referral

Which means less than £230 spending to hit my target of £1000 saving. My usual spending goal is less than £200 so this should be fine.

Probable outgoings:
£30 trim for pony
£15 hay for pony
£100 rent
£7.50 phone
£22.50 other
(£175)

In other news I have decided to cap my P2P at it's current amount and reinvest the interest along with it so it steadily grows, but doesn't become my whole savings.

Instead I will open a regular saver with Lloyds that offers 4% interest (this won't take all of my savings, but it should be good enough, along with my 4% current account (4-5k only) and my 1.4% other savings account.

TakeNoRoses

With no planned spending for tomorrow I should have hit my target for January (with a little extra). Managed to keep spending to £147.50.

February is looking a bit short:
First job: £600 (I may work two extra days to get an extra £75)
Second job: £335
P2P: £130
>£1,065 (possibly £1,140).

As per usual I will be trying to keep my spending below £200, projected:
£100 rent
£7.50 phone
£27.50 pony/hay
£50 other (unplanned)
>£185

Elmly

This may sound silly but what is p2p lending?

KONG

Elmly wrote: »

This may sound silly but what is p2p lending?

Peer-to-peer lending commonly abbreviated as P2PL is the practice of lending money to unrelated individuals, or "peers", without going through a traditional financial intermediary such as a bank or other traditional financial institution. P2PL is not to be confused with peer to peer investing (P2PI). This lending takes place online on peer-to-peer lending companies' websites using various different lending platforms and credit checking tools. Many also use the abbreviation "P2P" when discussing the peer-to-peer lending or investing industries more generally.

And I look at this thread to see progess.. :T

TakeNoRoses

Spending for Feb was £123. Feb Goal hit.

March Projected incomings:
First job: £675
Second job: £340
Third job: £70
Children's Bond maturing: £1,220
P2P: £120
>£2,425

March Projected outgoings:
Rent: £100
Hay: £40
Trim for pony: £20
Vets bill: £80
Supplements: £85
Other (unplanned): £25
>£350

TakeNoRoses

Well, a bit of an expensive month, but not as much as I expected. Managed to keep spending to £264.25, about £85 less than I predicted.

March saving goal smashed due to Children's Bond and my tax rebate, but HMRC have got my tax wrong for the billionth time so I'm going to have to pay about £600 back! I spent an hour on the phone to sort it in the first place, but oh well.

I now have £5,891/£12,000 saved, which is brilliant! (Especially since I'm averaging less than £7 an hour on my jobs, lol.) If I can I'm going to stretch for £15,000 savings in 2015, but I'm happy with anything over £12,000.

April Projected Incomings:
First job: £850
Second job: £200
Third job: £70
Holiday pay: £100
P2P: £125
>£1,345

April Projected Outgoings:
Rent: £125
Tax: £600 (because HMRC can't get anything right! grr)
Trim for pony: £20
Hay: £40
Chiro for me: £60
Chiro for pony: £60
Other (unplanned): £25
P2P tax: £70
>£1,000 :eek:

Looks like I won't be saving much in April!

TakeNoRoses

The HMRC saga continues with the rapid influx of tax codes... I feel like Harry Potter!

My tax code for this year was correct (after various attempts), now it is incorrect again. I wish I could charge them for the amount of time they've wasted!

bsms1147

The ~£100 a month you get from P2P, is that interest or does that include capital repayments? If the former then by my calculations, you must have around £20,000 in P2P, which might be a very heavy weighting depending on how much you have saved elsewhere and considering it is essentially unprotected.

Keep up the good work though.