Cash for The Cupcake - £600 Savings Challenge

juicyjackieb

My 2015 Budget Challenge

I am not great with money. Understatement.

I earn OK money. My formal outgoings are average. My spending is not out of control, just not managed.

So I have set myself a saving challenge for 2015. I want to end the year with £600 in my saving account. Its not a lot for a lot of people, but as a none-saver its a good start.

How I will do this:

- Wittle away £5 a week from my wages

- Set up my savings account on paypal as an additional account; from now on I will use my current account to buy anything BUT any money I get back through sales with be pushed into my savings account.

- Start ebaying the 3 suitcases of clothes that are too big for me. Its a burden but its finding time which I dont so I will have to force myself to do it, little by little till its gone. Even if its one thing a week.

- Start being more ruthless with my spending. This will suck but it has to be done.

- Start being more savvy with the things I do buy; use vouchers, get discounts.

- Live more simply.

- Use what I have, make do & mend a lot more

- Get involved with more ways to accrue side income; there ARE legit survey sites so I need to use my time a bit wiser and get on.

- Get back to comping again; I did it religiously a few years ago and got some fab things including a all inc holiday to The Bahamas. I earned 1-2k a year in selling unwanted prizes. It's not a guaranteed income but it's a fun distraction and you never know what will turn up!

- Get rid of any physical items that could go digital and save money borrowing, swapping and selling anything not needed

I would say I do sadly have debt; it will take years to clear some of it. This is about building a nest egg, a safety net, a panic fund. If I can get into the good habits now and reach my nest egg goal this year I will start to really tackle the debt in 2016 and beyond. Debt free by the time I'm 40 would be a dream!!

So far £0
To go £600

Bobarella

Good luck with your goal. Why the cupcake though? I'm intrigued.

juicyjackieb

Thanks Bob! And Cupcake is my nickname is all.. although I would love £600 of cupcakes mmmmm

juicyjackieb

OMG I downloaded the mint app and spent an hour going through my transactions and assigning them to categories. I am stunned.

Last month I spent £85 in Boots & Holland and Barratt... I mean what the actual fudge!! And food.. already £300 this month and its only the 23rd! Clothes, nearly £100!!! I wouldn't mind but I always look like a sack of spuds!

This exercise has really opened my eyes and utterly blown my mindhole about how much I spend. The reason I have no savings is glaringly obvious; I keep spending my money on nowt!

The Mint app / site has let me spend monthly spending budgets, to alert me if I go over etc, I am still going through these, I have a lot of paypal transactions that I would like to allocate to the right category. As there is only a week left of the month January is basically a write off, but this week will give me time to realistically set budgets for some key areas of spending before February 1st.

There are some areas that I have already done some work on this last week; food prepping, taking lunch to work instead of eating on the go. I have cut back on my shopping at Sainsburys and doing more at Aldi which does taste just as good. These are only very small changes but I am very much aware these things add up, all adding to my £600 emergency nest egg fund.

As I get paid weekly it can making budgeting a blessing and a curse. On the one hand I am never more than 7 days away from being paid again, however it also makes paying for the bigger things (rent, monthly travel pass) a bit of a kicker Also I am unsure if my weekly pay will continue as there are changes happening within my employment meaning we may switch to monthly pay at some point. Best enjoy it while I can, eh?

I do find that at the end of each week I have money in my account (most of the time ha ha). Some weeks in a very small amount (a few pounds) others its £30-£40-£50. I cant decide to move my end of week balance to my emergency fund to help bash the balance up quicker or to leave it in my current account to slowly build up and to clear the £1000 overdraft I am sadly permanently and have been for 15 years. I know its important to clear my overdraft but the lack of emergency fund scares me much more than me using my overdraft which aside from a £12 per month fee doesn't cause me too much stress. I am really tempted to just empty my current account every week and tip it into the savings account and start afresh each Friday afternoon when I get paid and use my weekly wage as my budget pot with no carry over, instead of just transferring £5 a week as I previously planned. I just dont want to have a bad week in 6 weeks time and have to dip into my emergency fund if I can help it, ya know?

I think I will give it a try, carry on with my other money hoarding plans and perhaps I will get to my £600 savings a lot sooner that the end of the year!

juicyjackieb

I am happy to say that after cashing in some old currency I had in my purse I have now reached my January target of saving £50! My balance sits at £56.06 and I still have a week and my 6 ebay auctions to go!

dalleDF

Ooh you've got your own diary! I'm subscribing! Sounds like you are mega focused on your savings challenge. I bet all the old clothes will get you a fair whack once you put them on eBay - if you can't be bothered to list them all individually, maybe you could just list the higher value stuff on its own and then group the rest into job lots e.g. skirts, t shirts? would save time at least.

juicyjackieb

The good thing is big clothes sell very well, much quicker than smaller clothes, because the new ones in the shops are so heavily overpriced because they know they can overcharge. I started out a size 32/34 and now I am a 20/22, with 3 cases of various sizes in my loft. There are a few nice dresses in there but yes I can totally do some tshirt bundles. I have 14 more free listing this month which I don't want waste so that will be my sunday!

I am also going to plan / budget as much as I can for the fun things I want to do this year - a valentines surprise for my man at £75 (but it will be utterly worth it!) and several 5k, 10k and the Birmingham half marathon again. I've agreed to a hen weekend in the summer and a spa day, a girls weekend in Cardiff, Plus my fella wants to go to amsterdam again and its been 5 years since I had a weeks holiday anywhere and my man wants to go and my God I need it too.

So realistically I am looking at another £1400 on top of my £600 nest egg fund! Although that said if I cant afford the week away I just will have to skip it, the ESF and the smaller events are more important to me and will probably set me back £600. I think that at least is much more doable!

I have never had so much stuff planned in a year in my life but I am determined to do as much as I can and enjoy it! Other people manage to save and do these things so I am sure tightening my belt it can be done. Then I can sell the belt.

juicyjackieb

Saturday Night Adulting!!

Went through all my shared bills with my mister; I moved in with him in September so everything is in his name (except the Virgin Media bill, in my name that I pay separately) and I am more than happy with that. I not bothered about having my name on anything ~ shrug ~ I got bigger fish to fry!

I wanted to go through all the bills to be absolutely sure I was paying my fair share (he is so kind he wouldn't say a word). We decided to have him pay the VM bill too and for me to increase my weekly bank transfers to him, as this makes my budgeting a bit easier. We also took the time to search for a good price on pet insurance for the cat (Large Marge!) as this was the final thing I have been meaning to sort since I moved in.

We worked it all out with the new additionals coming from his bank all I will be left with is one "housekeeping" transfer and my own bills. Its helping me see the wood for the trees and helping me set budgets for my spends!

Next step; looks at my spends on Mint and decide reasonable practical weekly / monthly spends, taking into account all the lovely events I have planned! They are all very heavily in the first 6 months of the year too so yes thats a kick in the nuts but I still want to live and enjoy life as well as beaver away with my savings.

juicyjackieb

What a great weekend - utterly boring, didn't go anywhere BUT instead I went through my finances with a fine tooth comb, reflected on how I spent and what I should spend and how thats going to break down. I now have a weekly plan (I get paid weekly).

£120 p/w transfer to my partner for all the bills -Set up

£60 p/w transfer to my mule account. My spare "mule" account is simply a dumping space to transfer money on a weekly basis for my monthly stuff or big things I want to set money aside for. As and when I get the alert that those big things are due from my current account I will simply tip exactly whats needed back into my current account. The Mule fund will help me gradually save for the 7 events / mini trips I have planned this year; including a weekend in Amsterdam.

Allow myself £110 P/W for all my non utilities - Food, mobile, beauty, going out, you know life and stuff. Its quite a lot, there will be weeks when I won't need it all, and weeks where I will max it out.

Transfer any leftovers to my ESF - Yay! If I can stick to budget I am looking at being able to save around £50 a week, I think anything more than that I will tip into my mule account to give me extra wiggle room, as a few of these events need my to buy tickets and the sooner the better for availability and possible early bird discounts. I want to buy my first Race entrance at the end of February.

So thats my plan - seems messy but now I have laid it out I know exactly where I am and what I should be doing. All this starts pay week commencing Friday 6th Feb as the next payday (30th) all my extras are already allocated to clearing the last of the bills and buying my misters valentines gift.

I am however - massively excited!!!

And to top it off, my first weeks ebaying resulted in selling 5/6 items, yielding £26, I have tipped £20 into my ESF and left the rest to cover fees. Therefore my savings pot has £76.06 out of the £50 January target set.... how awesome! With one week to go to month end I would love to get to £100 and double my target... it is on!

juicyjackieb

Had a bad spend today.... Well not terrible but a bad habit I need to get out of. I went to Costco for the first time ever with a colleague. To be honest I wasn't bowled over by the prices, but I bought some bread, milk and phili for a decent price, it will be a breakfast for the week for £2.

Then I saw the most sexy looking salad, the type of salad that people Instagram about. It made my eyes sparkle. It was horribly expensive for a lunch but I just really wanted it. And it was delicious. Worth £4.75? Hmmm.... It was scrummy.

So yes not the most frugal days, however I was intently hyper aware of how much I was spending. A month ago as long as I had money in the bank I wouldn't have cared.... That's progress... Of sorts.

juicyjackieb

Oh and I also took the 5 items I sold on eBay to the post office and realised I must think postal prices are the same as 1947 because I undercharged people on all items!!! I didn't make a loss but I could have made more if I had put some thought into it and not guessed. Lesson learnt, postage increased on the 5 I uploaded tonight.