The "Save 12k in 2016" Thread!

Lomcevak

A rather late declaration of £1639.79 for Feb, which makes £3104.37 for the first two months of the year - it's a rather slow start for me, but has all been a bit expensive recently

Better start to March though, I've dropped £1250 in to savings to get things started off, should be some more to come.

Bruce_Bumba

Gem-gem wrote: »

My hubby laughs at me... He says that I am the only person he knows that says, 'I have no money left' because I have saved it all. Hubby always saves his at the end of the month, but he has better self control than me. I have to pay myself first and then give myself an allowance that I can have guilt free fun with.
Does everyone else save what is left at the end of the month or pay yourself first at the beginning of the month?

Being new to the saving game, I've been debating the two methods so glad you're asking the forum!
In the end I think option 2 forces me to have more self-control if I want to maximise the pot whereas I'd probably be more careless and end up dipping into it if I knew I had some saved already.

imajica37

Gem-gem wrote: »

My hubby laughs at me... He says that I am the only person he knows that says, 'I have no money left' because I have saved it all. Hubby always saves his at the end of the month, but he has better self control than me. I have to pay myself first and then give myself an allowance that I can have guilt free fun with.
Does everyone else save what is left at the end of the month or pay yourself first at the beginning of the month?

I am the same as you. I used to take a chunk out of my current account as soon as my wage went in, and put it straight into my savings. I then did my best to "forget" about it and even if struggling at the end of the month try my hardest not to dip into it. I am now with Santander as they have a good interest rate and cashback so it's a bit strange having all my money in the same account and nowhere to squirrel away a chunk of money each month.

RichyRich

I have a bit of a hybrid system. I have a 'committed' savings amount which at the moment is £550 (300 FD and 250 TSB) which go out on payday. This means whatever happens each month I save £550 even if I don't save another penny.

I then, theoretically at least, save what's left at the end of the month.

In practice I'm always moving bits from my current account to savings. For example my visa bill is due out on Monday. That will be accompanied by a transfer into savings to make my current account balance a round number (my wife thinks I'm autistic). Rather than just round it down to the next £10 I'll make an assessment of how much I think I'll need for the rest of the month, based on the DDs due out later in the month, and make an appropriately sized transfer (still ending in a zero of course).

Depending on how far I cut the balance I sometimes need to make it end in a 5 rather than a 0. Last week I was most upset because I made an error with the timings and had an overnight balance with pence on it in my current account!

Quidco is paid straight to savings, it doesn't even see my current account. Accounting entries are made throughout the month to maximise interest. My highest paying accounts, in order, are

FD Regular 6%
TSB Classic Plus 5%
TSB Regular 5%
Natwide Regular 5%
Bank of Scotland 3%

So on the first of the month there's a £1k SO between TSB C+ and BoS in both directions to satisfy the funding requirement, and I'll manually do a £500 transfer from whichever account has the lowest rate to the Natwide Regular (assuming it wont take me below an interest threshold).

This month that's likely to be the BoS because the balance is just over £4K and the Internet drops at £3k so I'll still be in my limits. I *do* have a crappy FD eSaver for ease which pays next to nothing but is useful for scraping bits out of my current account for short periods. My quidco gets paid there and it's just as easy to ping it over to BoS on a FP as it is to change the details, esp as once BoS is full I'll want it paid somewhere else. I think of it as a 'holding' account!

Martin makes a big deal of how complicated this all is, suggesting we all need spreadsheets to keep track. I disagree. I'm fairly handy with Excel and use it every day at work but I've really not seen the need. I have all the apps and can track my balances at any time, in real time, and I'm not beholden to remembering to update it.

As for calculating the amount saved month to month, it's easy. I just add up all my balances to get my total balance, and then subtract how much I had the month before. To understand how much I've saved this year I subtract my 'starting figure' as stated in my signature.

All that reminds me - my BT £130 cash back is awaiting withdrawal from Quidco. Once I can drag my !!!! out of bed I must request it. I do wish there was a withdrawal option on the app!

Suffolk_lass

Thanks for the explanations of how others are counting savings and what some are doing to shuffle money for best rates. It has made me reflect on what we are doing. I do count both the regular saver 2x£250 HSBC 6% regular savers for Mr SL and me. With nothing else this will reach this year's target of £6000. However, I have also started to count the money left in the account Mr SL's salary goes into as that is our running costs account - I round that to the nearest pound and shove it in the savings account with the same bank. It earns no interest and I must find a better instant access option for it. It is our emergency fund.

We also have a couple of S&S ISAs although mine is frozen, we recently opened a second in Mr SL's name using an investment platform (I think that is what it is called) and split £3000 from last year's regular saver between 3 funds to open it. We will set up a small DD for £150 a month to dribble that in to these three funds and see where we are in a year's time. I am not counting these or any growth from them, but I should probably count the £150 per month I think.I am also not counting the interest accruing to other lumps of money that are in bonds or savings accounts at the moment.

I try to earmark money to overpay the mortgage each month except March (insurance) - but I sometimes miss the month after our summer hols. I do try to pay for holidays by spreading it out a bit - so when I booked for July/August I paid for the Ferry and a 50% deposit for a Villa but used an online hotel booking service to secure rooms but not pay until we travel. Just trying to smooth out the peaks really. We'll have to see where we are by September as I know MrSL wants to retire three years from then. Seems strange really, talking about retiring when we still don't know what we want to do when we grow up... :eek:

garfield33

#017 declaring -£1109.15 for February!! Paid off the credit card as the 0% deal was coming to an end. It was an attempt at stoozing but I don't think it's for me. So I'm -£585.58 against my target of £6k. Not sure if a negative percentage is correct, but if it is then I'm at -9.8%! Oh well, I'm sure March and April will be better...

RichyRich

Hey Garfield

Don't let being in a minus situation get you down. It happened to me in month one!

You have paid off your credit card. That is a huge achievement and a positive step. Onwards and upwards - you can concentrate on building your wealth now!

Karen's_girl

#87 declaring £400 for February.

Ruthy1604

#26 declaring £2276.73 for Feb and £4824.71 to date.

I've had to revise my Jan figure downwards as I realised I was double counting

Form submitted - thanks SF.

copperjar

Late declaration for Feb of £434.84

My computer has completely crashed which means that I've lost my budget tracker YNAB It's the thing that has really helped me in the last year achieve my goals. It's so difficult now keeping track of what I'm spending and how much I've got going into the various accounts. Need to find an easy interim solution while I wait and see if the comp can be repaired. It's really highlighted to me how dependant I had become on the app!