My journey to a debt free life

Willowtree222

I think I might need to read that post then to get me motivated. I really do struggle to save any kind of money at all. Other than giving it to someone else to look after, but I can't keep doing that for the rest of my life. 
Hope you are feeling better and in less pain x

Willowtree222

I've just read some of the posts. Some of them are saving extreme amounts!. It really puts me to shame. I think I need to re-evaluate a few things if they can save up so much money. x

Onebrokelady

Nicnak said:

I've just read some of the posts. Some of them are saving extreme amounts!. It really puts me to shame. I think I need to re-evaluate a few things if they can save up so much money. x

I read MovingForwards saving diary, it's so inspirational and also Irenadlers  is really good too, she was on a very low budget and has done amazing things with her money, Im so inspired by both of them 😊

Willowtree222

Thanks OBL. 
I find how much some save overwhelming as that is more than what I earn, but others are saving on little amounts and it soon mounts up. x

Onebrokelady

Nicnak said:

Thanks OBL. 
I find how much some save overwhelming as that is more than what I earn, but others are saving on little amounts and it soon mounts up. x

This is what I find encouraging about the posts,someone said that even if you only save £1 a month you can call yourself a saver. Doing this wouldn't be noticeable at all but it would change your view of yourself from someone who can't save to someone who does save, it then becomes a habit and you also naturally start to look at how you can save even more.
Im having a look at my finances later to see if I can squeeze anything extra out of my budget. I'm also coming up with ways to cut down on things to avoid wasting money such as my food bill,at the moment I allow £120 a month for just me but that includes all my food and cleaning products, toiletries and pet food, I still reckon I could cut it down though and want to treat it like a challenge. I'm thinking of setting myself some challenges to do to keep me motivated in between paydays. I'm always really good when I get paid but my commitment wavers as the month goes on so I'm hoping this will stop that from happening

Onebrokelady

I have had a slow start to today because I was so tired this morning I just didn't want to get out of bed, I was also in a very grumpy low mood that wasn't helped by yesterday's dishes not being washed when I got home from work last night.
 DD had been home all day and cooked but didn't clean up the mess or wash the dishes.I came home and decided I wasn't going to do it thinking she would do it this morning before work but it was all still there when i got up, she knows it messes up my day if the kitchen is a mess when I come down in the morning, I just like to wake up to a tidy house 😟normally she is really good and I am cutting her some slack because she has just started her new job so is tired and a bit stressed out. I can see we are going to have to have a conversation though if it carries on 🙁I made lots of plans for today while I was at work and was really excited to crack on with them but when I woke up this morning I just couldn't be bothered. This keeps happening and it's driving me nuts but I can't seem to shake it off,anyway I forced myself to go into town for the shopping I needed and now actually feel better. I didn't do all the things I had planned to do in town but I did the basics 😊

Im now back at home and my next job is to take up and hem a pair of DDs work trousers ,she was meant to be doing it yesterday but didn't do it so I'm going to do some in a minute 🙄 I still haven't washed the dishes from yesterday and I'm tempted to leave them for her to do when she gets in 🙀

Willowtree222

Onebrokelady said:

Nicnak said:

Thanks OBL. 
I find how much some save overwhelming as that is more than what I earn, but others are saving on little amounts and it soon mounts up. x

This is what I find encouraging about the posts,someone said that even if you only save £1 a month you can call yourself a saver. Doing this wouldn't be noticeable at all but it would change your view of yourself from someone who can't save to someone who does save, it then becomes a habit and you also naturally start to look at how you can save even more.
Im having a look at my finances later to see if I can squeeze anything extra out of my budget. I'm also coming up with ways to cut down on things to avoid wasting money such as my food bill,at the moment I allow £120 a month for just me but that includes all my food and cleaning products, toiletries and pet food, I still reckon I could cut it down though and want to treat it like a challenge. I'm thinking of setting myself some challenges to do to keep me motivated in between paydays. I'm always really good when I get paid but my commitment wavers as the month goes on so I'm hoping this will stop that from happening

I didn't even think of it like that. I always brush myself off as 'not being able to save'. If I can manage a £1 savings, then I am a saver!

foxgloves

I shall have to look at some of those posts about saving, OBL, so thanks for flagging them up. I am a saver now, but throughout my extensive Spendy Years, I told myself I didn't earn enough to save. Of course this was complete rubbish. I didn't save anything because I chose to spend every penny I earned (plus plenty technically belonging to the bank, rather than to me). I often think now about how even putting £10 or £20 away each month towards the horror that my overdraft became every Christmas would have been helpful, & I could have saved a lot more than that.
I do find that having a goal in mind helps and also, I know this might sound a bit retro in the days of internet banking, but two of our savings accounts have pass-books! I pay into them electronically by standing order but when I am in the building society for whatever reason, I can hand over our pass-books to get them updated. I was so surprised to be given these when we opened the accounts last year, but the customer services person we spoke to said that lots of people have said that they really find the little books motivating as they can see the amounts going up & it encourages them to save more. I think I'd have to agree with that, actually, especially as when I last went in to get ours updated, we'd gained a little bit of interest, so the total was just that little bit more than I thought. 
I guess it doesn't always need to be a specific goal though - the increased financial buffer which a positive saving habit creates is a motivating thing in its own right. Like a lot of sensible money management things, I wish I'd discovered it a whole lot earlier!
F x

Onebrokelady

foxgloves said:

I shall have to look at some of those posts about saving, OBL, so thanks for flagging them up. I am a saver now, but throughout my extensive Spendy Years, I told myself I didn't earn enough to save. Of course this was complete rubbish. I didn't save anything because I chose to spend every penny I earned (plus plenty technically belonging to the bank, rather than to me). I often think now about how even putting £10 or £20 away each month towards the horror that my overdraft became every Christmas would have been helpful, & I could have saved a lot more than that.
I do find that having a goal in mind helps and also, I know this might sound a bit retro in the days of internet banking, but two of our savings accounts have pass-books! I pay into them electronically by standing order but when I am in the building society for whatever reason, I can hand over our pass-books to get them updated. I was so surprised to be given these when we opened the accounts last year, but the customer services person we spoke to said that lots of people have said that they really find the little books motivating as they can see the amounts going up & it encourages them to save more. I think I'd have to agree with that, actually, especially as when I last went in to get ours updated, we'd gained a little bit of interest, so the total was just that little bit more than I thought. 
I guess it doesn't always need to be a specific goal though - the increased financial buffer which a positive saving habit creates is a motivating thing in its own right. Like a lot of sensible money management things, I wish I'd discovered it a whole lot earlier!
F x

I was the same 🙄I was always wondering how people managed to save anything when my money disappeared every month,now I know what I used to waste money on I can see where I could have saved. Hindsight is a wonderful thing 😀

Onebrokelady

Nicnak said:

Onebrokelady said:

Nicnak said:

Thanks OBL. 
I find how much some save overwhelming as that is more than what I earn, but others are saving on little amounts and it soon mounts up. x

This is what I find encouraging about the posts,someone said that even if you only save £1 a month you can call yourself a saver. Doing this wouldn't be noticeable at all but it would change your view of yourself from someone who can't save to someone who does save, it then becomes a habit and you also naturally start to look at how you can save even more.
Im having a look at my finances later to see if I can squeeze anything extra out of my budget. I'm also coming up with ways to cut down on things to avoid wasting money such as my food bill,at the moment I allow £120 a month for just me but that includes all my food and cleaning products, toiletries and pet food, I still reckon I could cut it down though and want to treat it like a challenge. I'm thinking of setting myself some challenges to do to keep me motivated in between paydays. I'm always really good when I get paid but my commitment wavers as the month goes on so I'm hoping this will stop that from happening

I didn't even think of it like that. I always brush myself off as 'not being able to save'. If I can manage a £1 savings, then I am a saver!

When I first joined this site I started saving £1 coins in a tin and I was amazed how quickly they mounted up, I didn't have a plan for them and I did use them in the end but it was a good way of squirrelling money away, the only problem at the moment is I'm not using cash anywhere so never have any change 😟
Ive also noticed a distinct lack of control since I've been using a card instead of cash. I had got into a system of drawing out cash for my food and splitting it up into weekly amounts but I don't feel like I can do that now because everyone wants card payments 😟