Savings diary of Lifeatthekings

[Deleted User]

Diary of the kings

So, 25, about to get married in the next 2 months and working full time in a nursery.
My fiance is about to start a new job in August where he can put away £1,000 monthly in savings.

My personal spending could be so much better and also as team we're agreeing to cut down on some expenses.

We want to buy our own home but in recent weeks & months, we've been hating our current rented house so are in early talks of renting another house in the next 2-8 months as our house doesn't feel like a home even after 2 years of living here and we are disliking where we live as things have gotten rubbish with neighbours and we do want a better house. We have no storage for the amount we have and really too small to put nice storage in.

My position;
£6 in save the change account from Lloyds
£0 in other savings
£400ish in wedding savings with £145.55 left to save before September

I am not sharing my monthly take home as I get paid friday and will be starting from fresh then & also this changes monthly because of hours. This will be updated friday when i work out my budget.

Bank accounts i have;
Lloyds - Personal spending
Natwest - Bills
Santander - Wedding savings

Other money savings
Llama piggy bank - Unknown

Saving goals

[*]Pay off all wedding
[*]£3,000 new rented home fund Doing in 6 chunks of £500
[STRIKE][*]£1000[/STRIKE] £500 Emergency fund
[*]Save £1,500 - £2,000 for holiday
[*]Buy a home
[*]Save for a baby when we buy our new house


Expenses
Food: £250
Electric: Between £60-£80
Phone contract: £46.00
Phone insurance: £9.69
Amazon: £7.99
Bus fare: £66.00
TV License: £13.20
Council Tax: £120.00
Water: £13.50
Goldsmiths Wedding ring finance repayment: £41.25
Spotify: £9.99
twinkl monthly: £7.39
*NEW* NHS certificate - £10.00
Any other bill not listed , My fiance pays.

[Deleted User]

1. Aim for 10 nsd's & Place £1 for each one
2. Use cash more
3. Use Lloyds account for personal spending (for save the change)
4. Aim to spend less on food budget
5. Write down income & Spends
6. Actively do qmee where possible
7. Have more veggie meals
8. Cut down on take outs
9. Stop buying food from work

Challenges I'm part of
* 2019 1% challenge

August paycheck
£647.62 - bills (I budgeted £20 extra for energy as we ran out this month)
£145.55 - Put back into wedding
£100.00 - Put into Christmas fund
£132.97 - Personal Spending money

Current Savings
New home: £14.81
Christmas: £0
Holiday: £0

Boosting Income
Qmee - £2.43
Receipt hog - 651 / 849 points left to earn £5 gift card

Dazed_and_confused

How long has your phone contract got left to run? You are likely to be able to save £30+/month when you move to sim only.

And the phone insurance sounds expensive :eek:
My house insurance is around the same amount, albeit paid in one lump sum rather than spread out monthly

Alistair31

People still pay TV license?

[Deleted User]

it's a new 24 month contract, its actually cheaper than the other contracts I was looking at and offers rewards suited to me. I get a ton of mobile data as I use a lot at work and out on trips.
My phone insurance covers a lot of things and for the samsung s10 , it's one of the cheaper insurance for it. I accidentally break my phone often. We had it on the house insurance but i had to make a claim on it and so its gone higher and since my fiance was paying house insurance he didn't want my phone on it anymore as he didn't trust me with looking after the phone which is fair play.

Sim only didn't offer me what I wanted

We still do pay TV licence as we watch TV ?


Thread update;
* Added August budget
* Changed my first few replies around
* Goals list is in order of what I want to achieve first
* Added more detail
* made it easier to read

LobsterMemory

Hi

I don't understand why you want to use cash more.

You have to take out more than you need, it's easier to fritter or lose and it's not earning interest

Instead, paying by credit card potentially gives you cashback,your spending is more transparent and keeps the money in your account for a month (earning interest if applicable or if not, you can transfer what you've spent on the card into a savings account until you transfer it back to pay off the bill

As it's clear that you're looking after the pennies, that could be an extra £1.50 - £2.50 a month on your food shop alone

Good luck!

xylophone

It appears that both of you will be first time buyers.

LISA for each of you?

Example

https://www.moneyboxapp.com/cash-lifetime-isa/

Ngozi

Prime and Spotify?
Doesn't Prime include music, I actually dont know, but if so, is there a need for both?
Do you really need Prime and Spotify if attempting to save money? I admit the adverts on Spotify are annoying but save £120 a year without, plus another £96 if you scrap Prime as well.
If you really need Prime, look at a yearly subscription, it will save you a bit.

Is there interest on the Wedding Ring repayment? If so, are you able to pay it off early, save on the interest if there is any.

If you're saving to buy a new house, don't know where you live, but is there a NEED to move from your current place? £3k is a nice lump towards a deposit, plus combine whatever you and your partner save each month, with a LISA/H2B ISA, probably save up for a deposit quite fast.

I'm a scrooge, scrap xmas for adults, realistically there is nothing you can buy for another adult what they can't afford to buy themselves. My family hated me when I said no to xmas, then we came to compromise, we spend £75 on 1 family member, that is it. Everyone is happy, everyone gets gift(s) and everyone saves a load of money.
(I uy for rother, brother buys for mother, mother buys for 3rd son, brother buys for father etc...)

Zero_Sum

lifeatthekings wrote: »

1. Aim for 10 nsd's & Place £1 for each one
2. Use cash more
3. Use Lloyds account for personal spending (for save the change)
4. Aim to spend less on food budget
5. Write down income & Spends
6. Actively do qmee where possible
7. Have more veggie meals
8. Cut down on take outs
9. Stop buying food from work

Challenges I'm part of

August paycheck
£657.62 - bills (I budgeted £20 extra for energy as we ran out this month)
£145.55 - Put back into wedding
£100.00 - Put into Christmas fund
£132.97 - Personal Spending money

Current Savings
New home: £6.27
Christmas: £0
Holiday: £0

Boosting Income
Qmee - £2.43
Receipt hog - 651 / 849 points left to earn £5 gift card

Shoppix is better than receipt hog
Curious cat is better than qmee

Zero_Sum

Ngozi wrote: »

Prime and Spotify?
Doesn't Prime include music, I actually dont know, but if so, is there a need for both?
Do you really need Prime and Spotify if attempting to save money? I admit the adverts on Spotify are annoying but save £120 a year without, plus another £96 if you scrap Prime as well.
If you really need Prime, look at a yearly subscription, it will save you a bit.

Is there interest on the Wedding Ring repayment? If so, are you able to pay it off early, save on the interest if there is any.

If you're saving to buy a new house, don't know where you live, but is there a NEED to move from your current place? £3k is a nice lump towards a deposit, plus combine whatever you and your partner save each month, with a LISA/H2B ISA, probably save up for a deposit quite fast.

I'm a scrooge, scrap xmas for adults, realistically there is nothing you can buy for another adult what they can't afford to buy themselves. My family hated me when I said no to xmas, then we came to compromise, we spend £75 on 1 family member, that is it. Everyone is happy, everyone gets gift(s) and everyone saves a load of money.
(I uy for rother, brother buys for mother, mother buys for 3rd son, brother buys for father etc...)

Personally think £75 is excessive.
Other than GF which we both go a bit overboard with each other, my mother, father, brother get a about £15-£20 each spent on them which is usually just bottles of alcohol. Which as you say, they have most of what they want anyway so just a token bottle of something is all thats needed.
GF has quite a big family & spends way too much. Worst of all theres quite a lot of 'nice' sentimental gifts that no one actually wants so just spending for sake of it. She cant get her head round to my way of thinking unfortunatelly.

DairyQueen

Ngozi wrote: »

I'm a scrooge, scrap xmas for adults, realistically there is nothing you can buy for another adult what they can't afford to buy themselves. My family hated me when I said no to xmas, then we came to compromise, we spend £75 on 1 family member, that is it. Everyone is happy, everyone gets gift(s) and everyone saves a load of money.

My family have introduced 'Secret Santa' for the adults this year. We will each buy a reasonably expensive gift for the randomly selected recipient. I have also slightly increased spends on birthday gifts but, overall, it will save every family member 100s.