Goals, hopes and dreams

itsthelittlethings

[Deleted User] said:

Do you mean you are planning on being £250 overdrawn?

Yes.......

Rich1976

itsthelittlethings said:

Rich1976 said:

itsthelittlethings said:

Yawn. It's nice not to have any credit cards. I have 250 in my overdraft until payday.

I need to pay for a haircut £55, meal out with friend £25, train to London £25. Coffees £10, food £35. That's £150. I can do it!

So does that mean you will be £150 down/short when you do get paid?

if so, the above doesn’t sound to me to be the best use of your money. I would have put off all of the above until after you’d got paid and then done them.

My overdraft is 0%, is it not OK to use it?

My haircut is OK. It's nice to have shorter hair again.

Looking forward to the weekend. I learned a new skill at work yesterday but it is a tiny bit boring!

Lovely birthday meal at the weekend with my mum, niece and niece's boyfriend. The young people were a tiny bit bored but that's ok. It was so nice to see my mum.

Regardless of whether it’s 0% or 40% it is still borrowing money which isn’t yours, and when you next get paid it means you will be down by £150 or whatever you have gone overdrawn by before the month has even started.

so either you’ve got make sure your spending is back on track next month to put yourself back in the black or you will be overdrawn again and so it goes on.

ideally you should only be using the money that’s in your account to pay your bills, for savings and for fun money and once it’s gone that should be it until you get paid again, regardless of whether you have an overdraft.

we have an overdraft but it is never used because we only spend what we have.

[Deleted User]

To be honest your approach to budgeting and managing money is coming across as rather whimsical. You quite easily justify overspending with rather bland statements. Are you really serious about saving money for whatever purpose? I am beginning to feel that the purpose of your thread is not genuine.

itsthelittlethings

[Deleted User] said:

To be honest your approach to budgeting and managing money is coming across as rather whimsical. You quite easily justify overspending with rather bland statements. Are you really serious about saving money for whatever purpose? I am beginning to feel that the purpose of your thread is not genuine.

I have saved £1000 in less than 12 months which I am thrilled to bits with.  I know I could do better so this thread is about finding out how I can start to budget even better and stop overspending to reach my goals.

I think I will set up a new regular saver for £200 a month when I get paid and then see if I can balance the books.

itsthelittlethings

Going to do a shop in Asda after work. I need milk, yoghurt, apples, cream cheese.

itsthelittlethings

I shopped in Sainsbury's as it's just around the corner from work. It was about £20. Hopefully that's all food until payday. Then I must do a big Asda shop. Food is so expensive nowadays, I know shopping in Sainsbury's doesn't help.

Saver73

Good to hear you have paid off the credit cards and great to hear you have saved £1k already.  Unless you are going exceed the PSA and pay tax on interest you can get a higher interest rate on savings and the ISA isn't really relevant.

I really think it would help you budgeting and saving if you did a weekly shop and meal planning.  Instead of doing small shops and big shops, just do one and write a list.  You'll same time and money!

You can write yourself a personalised budget and include a section for coffees, meals out and socialising.  You can put whatever categories you like.

Another idea you could try is keeping a spending diary, write down every time you spend and it will help you see where you are spending money.

Also, maybe give yourself a savings challenge?  If you could save £1k in less than 12 months, could you save £2k or £5k or more in the next 12 months.  You mentioned your savings goal in an earlier post.  Challenge yourself to reach the goal inless time. It's definitely possible with regular savers. Try the savings calculator I linked you too.

Saver73

Also on the subject of food shopping you mention supermarkets approx 7 times from the time you started posting until today which is about 2 weeks.  If you still have receipts (or check bank statement) add up to see how much you've spent, this will give you an idea of how much you can save by doing a weekly shop.  In the same period I've been to a supermarket twice, spending £30-£35 each time.

itsthelittlethings

Thanks, some food for thought there. I could definitely get my food spend down, doing a weekly shop is a good idea and one I will try. I like the idea of a savings challenge and am going to see if I can manage £2000 this year. Might start a savings diary as I did it before and it was helpful.

Nice weekend,  back to work today. Luckily I'm only working four days this week as I'm going to London on Friday.

Am back to healthy eating as I'd like to lose a bit of weight. Had yoghurt, blueberries, dried cranberries, seeds and cacao nibs this morning. Very tasy.

itsthelittlethings

Lovely but busy weekend last weekend. Didn’t spend too much money, all things considered. I am away at a craft course this weekend. The overnight stay is already paid for and then I am going out for drinks on Sunday but I don’t drink alcohol so that shouldn’t be too spendy. Looking forward to a quiet weekend next weekend.

Put £200 in savings when I got paid, hopefully won’t touch that. Have upped my credit union standing order to £20/ week.

I can’t wait for Easter and four days off. Not got much planned. No other big spends planned.

I still have quite a bit of money on my coffee card, and in my food spending account so hopefully won’t bust the budget in those two categories this month.