My motivating money saving diary

WSC

Current situation:

Mortgage - 1 bed leasehold flat c.£150,000 left to pay. Flat value c. £190k.
Loan (paying back flat deposit) -10 months at £250 pm left c.£2500 in total left to pay.

Credit card 0% - £5,500
Student Loan - c.£5000 left to pay. (Monthly amount of around £250 taken monthly by government from salary). 
Savings - £10,000 (next month hopefully £14,000 after paying in bonus & holiday pay from AL I did not take).

Salary- £53,694 + 8% bonus. 

Living with partner salary -c.£25k

Travel
Car- inherited. 

Currently no train fair season ticket due to COVID (preciously 5k per year).

Goal:
To pay off credit card & loan, & to save enough money to buy a house, whilst keeping my flat at the same time, to allow me to rent it out. 

I do not come from a wealthy background, and have worked very hard, and continue to work hard to try and ensure I am as financially secure as I can be. I have recently increased my salary significantly for the first time, so I now have no excuse but to save.  I haven’t been the best saver in the past, and have lived beyond my means sometimes, although never let it get out of control. I am now hoping this diary will help me to stay on track with my savings goal. I haven’t spent any money other than on food and bills for the last two months, trying my best. Here goes! 

longway2go

Good luck with your goal

WSC

Many thanks for the good wishes 😊

WSC

Today I’ve spent £50 on my dad’s birthday present. We always spend this amount on each other for birthdays, so even though I am saving hard, I still wanted to make sure I gave him what I normally would. However, on his birthday walk, I did take a flask of tea & I made a banana bread out of bits we already had in- so zero cash spent today on that 👍. 

Activated the £5 cash back offer I saw on here for my American Express credit card, as there are local shops on there I use anyway for food.

Just about to go and sign up to get a NC & I savings account as it looks the best one for me, according to this site, to put my savings into. It should start to give me about £15 per month in interest I hope at least. 

Trying to decide if I pay £5 to get some cupcakes from a local business delivered to my friend as she is having a very hard time at the moment. I would normally order them in a heartbeat for her but as I’m trying so hard to save, I am toying with whether this is the sort of thing I also need to cut back on for while. I sent my nan, to cheer her up in lockdown, the £5 cupcakes last week, and she loved them. 
However in combination all these little things add up & I can’t cut back on much else really....

bethjames5681

Well done to you. Sounds like you're determined to make a change and you're doing the right things. With regards to the cupcakes etc, to work out whether to treat yourself or not. Make a note of all this disposable spend over the coming weeks and take note of whether it was balanced or not. Treats from time to time are important as long as you're balancing them out. If you're too stringent from day one it will feel like a chore.

bethjames5681

Also - what's the rate on your loan? Worth paying it off out of your savings?

WSC

Thanks very much for your helpful advice. You are right I need to be a little bit more balanced with it- I am an all or nothing kind of person - not good at balance! I go from saving loads, to spending loads, dependent on my situation or if I have a goal in mind. I will remember that. 

That’s a good point too on the loan. The loan rate is 3 percent. I think when I checked before there is a penalty if I try to pay it back early. But I will double check that then, as if there isn’t I guess I should pay it off now rather than put the money in my savings? I am currently paying about £8 a month interest on it which drops by 50p ish each month. I am due to pay it off in April. 

jenni_fer

Welcome and good luck!

bethjames5681

Yeah - check it out - even if you can't pay it off in full, maybe you can chip it right down to reduce the monthly interest. I'm presuming your savings rate is lower than 3%.

WSC

Thanks very much Jennifer.
Thanks BethJames I will look into that tomorrow 👌

julicorn

Hi WSC, and happy new diary! I'm looking forward to seeing how you get on. We're in a similar situation, also in a 1 bed flat where we're overpaying the mortgage to save for a house. Our income is lower, but I make a fair bit of money on the side, so it works out vaguely similar too
As for things like the cupcakes, I started using a proper 0-based budget (combined with tracking and accounting for all our spending) at the start of our overpayment journey, and it's been absolutely invaluable (both in terms of facilitating our overpayments, but also to tackle questions like that one). I use YNAB, have a search in this forum, lots of people here find it useful. Right now, for example, I have £20 sat in a category called 'random little presents', so the £5 cupcakes would be a no-brainer. Otherwise, I'd have to steal that money from another category (so would directly make up for that spend in other areas).