Young And Dumb

Mx_Emmin

I've decided I'm going to start job searching... For a very specific job, so it might take a while.
​​​​​​​    
I'll be looking for IFA Administrator and Paraplanner roles, which - as it's my long term goal with this Diploma study to be an IFA, an IFA Administrator or Paraplanner would be doing admin for an IFA... 

But job searching in 2020/21 is going to be fun.
 
But 2020 has changed my role so much, and they've basically said some of the old stuff isn't coming back, and some of the new stuff isn't going away, and I wouldn't have applied for the job as it is today.   
 
Also, when I went in this morning I got told that one of our colleagues got punched on Saturday so that's fun. We're calling the police more and more and it's just... ugh

Mx_Emmin

Payday! And, seeing as we're almost at the end of the year, I'm taking a closer look at my goals for each category. I'm worried I've got a little too comfortable WAM-ing from my long-neglected "Social" category, which still has it's original goal of £50 just sitting there waiting for some love. I don't think it's had £50 in since March. 
I adjusted my Christmas Goals this months, to give me a full 12 months of saving - if I start saving from my January pay check I'll only have 11 months to save before I spend. 10, really, because I'll start buying presents in November. 
Some goals I wanted to adjust from January - like my Pride savings, for example. When it became clear that Pride 2020 wasn't happening, I set that category to "Save £120 by June 2021" so I've only been paying in a couple of quid per month, as it was already over £100 when I did that. I was hoping to revert it to a nice easy "£10 per month" in January but I don't think that's happening just yet. 
With my goals I've been tending to plan for about £25 more than my average salary, as I don't tend to empty out every category ever month - particularly public transport, I've got very good at walking to work. I suppose if I ever did empty out every category I would have some choices to make. 
So some goals are likely to be lowered in the New Year as I have new things I want to save up for. I'm trying to start saving regularly for Sims, for various name updating products, for my "Next Move" fund, for a hypothetical future tattoo, and so on and so forth.
I've been putting money into that fund for Dad's belated birthday holiday trip that never was, the original goal was £225, as of this paycheck I have £295 set aside. I was setting aside £10 per month, I shall now be setting aside £5 per month. Previously I was setting aside close to £35 for my FA Diploma, for now that's going to be £30. 
I'll do a full run down at the actual end of the year. 
 
There's always too many expenses and not enough money I'm sure if I had just a little bit more all my problems would be solved :P 
 
I've almost hit my Divorce fund goal of £1000. Although I have realised lately that when that does get started - even assuming it's a relatively peaceful process - that's really going to hit my net worth hard. Ho hum. Hopefully I won't spend all of that.

Mx_Emmin

I found a fancy loos leaf tea shop recently and I've just realised I've spent £26 in the last three weeks there
 
Which isn't too bad but it wasn't budgeted for. Also potentially explains why things felt a little tight this pay period, even accounting for Christmas 
 
They have a subscription service though for £10pm, I'm usually not a fan of subscription boxes but if it reigns me in, it may be warranted here 

Mx_Emmin

Christmas Budget Rundown!
 
Category - Approx Saved - Spent
Gifts Family - £120 - £102.85
Gifts Friends - £60 - £74.74
Misc - £60 - £74.75
Total - £240 - £252.34
 
I don't have an exact figure on my Christmas Groceries spending, but my grocery budget isn't particularly higher than usual even with the "One Last Brexit" shop going through the Groceries category. This isn't even my overall highest spends month. Ok, there's still technically two/three days left to go in this month. And I need to do a Grocery shop. But I feel pretty confident I won't change the metrics that much.
 
Lessons for next year: hold firm on my budget goals for presents.  
 
Edit: ​Oh, whoops, just realised that I gave my brother a cheque for Christmas - that means the Family Gifts Spent is £127.85 and the Total Spent is £277.34

Mx_Emmin

2020 in Review! 
I made this graph, going back to Jan 2019. I keep hoping I'll dig up the numbers to go back further but it would take a lot of detective work. I started YNAB in October 2019 so that's when I got a reliable Net Worth figure every month.

I decided to go into YNAB and look at the breakdowns of what I spent this year

The top three categories are Monthly Spends, Weekly Spends, and Yearly Spends.
For Monthly Spends:

Well the only reason this is so high up on the list is because of rent, so this is honestly not particularly surprising. If there wasn't rent this would be much lower on the list.
Then there's Weekly Spends:

Again, no surprise in the biggest category here. Food is important! Honestly I'm surprised I spent so "much" on Social Spends considering the year we've had.
And finally, the Yearly Spends:

Education, Therapy, Moving House, Whiskey, Electronics and Christmas. 
 
And then, finally, my goals for 2021:

Ironically I actually completed one goal already. I just thought it would be funny if I completed a resolution on 01/01/2021 so I managed to push myself and barely barely barely did a 5K in 30 minutes. I think I overexerted myself to be honest I spent the rest of the day worn out. 
The R02 and R03 goal refer to modules of my FA Diploma. The Nonbinaries thing is a local group, I just obscured the place name. I started it myself in Spring 2020 but it sort of failed to get off the ground in 2020 for obvious reasons. Hopefully next... summer? ... I can relaunch it.
In regards to "Jumper" I mean the crochet I do I just want to make myself one
But this is a finance forum so those are the goals you are most interested in. The Emergency Fund I should hit on schedule, as long as I keep dong what I'm doing. The One Month Ahead goal is going to be a harder challenge and I'm not sure I can hit that but I can try. It would help if I could stop thinking of new things to save up for. 

My categories moving forward have not changed that much compared to last month, so I wont post an update to them just yet, maybe in a day or two when I'm less tired. 
 
If I had one regret it would be... not getting a haircut this past week as now we're in Tier 4 and the hairdressers are shut and I will look like a yeti  

Sarahwithlove

Great goals and good luck with them. I'll have to look at my own ynab graphs. Did you do it on a computer? I wonder if would work on my ipad 

Mx_Emmin

Sarahwithlove said:

Great goals and good luck with them. I'll have to look at my own ynab graphs. Did you do it on a computer? I wonder if would work on my ipad 

Ah sorry it didnt notify me you posted! The line graph was done in Excel (or an Excel parody) the pie graphs were doing using YNAB toolkit 

Mx_Emmin

I have a regret. There was an internal vacancy within Santander for THE JOB I want... but in another city. And I'm not in the mood to move city. So I didnt apply, and it closed, and the more I think about it the more I regret. 

 

Now at no point was it ever guaranteed. There was no button that said "this job is 100% yours if you just CLICK HERE!" and tbh I technically fell mildly short of the requirements as they wanted you to have completed 2 FA Diploma modules and I've only completed 1 module. (6 modules is a complete diploma)

 

And I don't want to move city. But for this job? I have no kids, no partner... I know I'm capable of moving city, it just sucks for a month or two.

 

So. Next time the opportunity comes up, I guess.   Now I know.

 
~*~
 
In a more positive note, I just had a funny moment that shows how far my habits have come. At Christmas I got £50 in cash, but I only deposited £40 into my account/budget, I kept £10 in my pocket for walking around money. For chippies, pretty much. 
 
I don't put physical cash into my budget because I use it so rarely, it's just not worth tracking.
 
And today I spent a little of that money on a snack, and as I was wandering down the street, munch munch, I had a small moment of panic and grabbed my pocket as I thought - I forgot to enter my transaction! 
 
I didnt need to enter that transaction but it made me laugh a little that was my instinct.

Sarahwithlove

Maybe see it as an incentive to get the modules done so that if a similiar role appears again you will be able to maximise your chances. 

Mx_Emmin

Sarahwithlove said:

Maybe see it as an incentive to get the modules done so that if a similiar role appears again you will be able to maximise your chances. 

Absolutely!