saving my future self from debt

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  • another_casualty
    another_casualty Posts: 6,506 Forumite
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post
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    This is a great diary. Wishing you the very best .
  • pennyforthepot
    pennyforthepot Posts: 652 Forumite
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    jubilee63 wrote: »
    I have just read your diary and just wanted to say that you have a lovely natural writing style. i am already looking forward to reading further posts. Good luck with saving the amount you need to claw back...i have a feeling you will manage this as you seem determined and your previous posts reveal tenacity and a good sense of humour.

    Aww - thanks jubilee63, very touched by your kind words.

    I was just thinking last night as I was calculating yet another tiny cost reduction that the only way to not get yourself down about it is to play it like a game. Make it as fun as possible challenging yourself, partner and children. Break costs down into the smallest possible calculations (eg my cost per coffee) challenge the kids to pour a tiny bit less squash into a cup, eat one less biscuit, squeeze less toothpaste onto a toothbrush.Get a chart that you stick on the fridge and colour it in every time the kids have saved 5p. (sorry randomly thinking out loud on your post :).
    Goal:to save £16,000 by 30/09/2019 claw back rental costs
    May18 -£2,954.33/£16,000
  • pennyforthepot
    pennyforthepot Posts: 652 Forumite
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    another_casualty wrote: »
    This is a great diary. Wishing you the very best .

    Thank you another casualty your words are heartfelt :)
    Goal:to save £16,000 by 30/09/2019 claw back rental costs
    May18 -£2,954.33/£16,000
  • pennyforthepot
    pennyforthepot Posts: 652 Forumite
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    It's so close to the end of month posting and I've spent quite some time this morning getting things organised so it's easy to track my progress and post it in a semi-understandable format. I think being organised in your tracking is half the battle. Being able to analyse the tiny details is what helps you make small changes which in the long term aid larger savings.

    Budgets and spreadsheets should be a fluid tool rather than a static, set in stone quantity, particularly given the early months of budgeting where you are still feeling your way. I have been in the budgeting game in a detailed way for just over 13 years now and I'm still shuffling pennies around and finding new ways to allocate money thanks to the diaries and threads on this site. This is probably the most detailed breakdown I have done in that many years as I am having to breakdown my costs further and further and create new savings pots in order to understand my spend and potential savings.
    PFTP x
    Goal:to save £16,000 by 30/09/2019 claw back rental costs
    May18 -£2,954.33/£16,000
  • pennyforthepot
    pennyforthepot Posts: 652 Forumite
    edited 29 April 2018 at 4:29PM
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    In light of my last post I have spent some time looking at a new budget for the month of May. I have made some changes to the amounts as well as adding in some new pots and shuffling monies from one pot to another:
    (sorry about the format it doesnt seem to like being copied from a spreadsheet
    new change category
    £1,895 £0 rent
    £75 -£10 electricity
    £38 £0 plusnet
    £24 £0 water
    £106 £0 mob x 3
    £191 £11 council tax
    £95 £10 annual costs
    £225 -£25 celebrations
    £50 £50 hairdresser new pot
    £100 £100 contingency new pot
    £150 -£50 kids allowance
    £250 -£50 food
    £90 -£10 petrol
    £70 -£80 kids cost £50 moved to hairpot!
    £20 -£130 me (£80 moved to Brighton pot)
    £80 £80 brighton pot(new pot)
    £50 £0 misc
    £15 £0 spotify
    £0 -£86 I F loan

    £3,524 -£190


    I would like to make this a round £200 reduction but so may shave a couple of £s here and there. Some pots are difficult to reduce such as electricity as I don't know what the weather will be like this coming winter - long and cold I imgagine but by being on top of my usage over the summer I have made the assumption that I can cut my monthly cost by £10 but I will keep the dd at £85.

    Enough budgeting and spread sheeting for me today, I'm off to find that life :o

    Electricity usage £2.45 yesterday.Did a lot of cooking and used up all the hot water which is why its up by 20p

    PFTP x
    Goal:to save £16,000 by 30/09/2019 claw back rental costs
    May18 -£2,954.33/£16,000
  • pennyforthepot
    pennyforthepot Posts: 652 Forumite
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    Feeling that I have got to grips with my amended budget for May and am going to put the £190 savings into my rent pot at the beginning of the month to prevent me from using it as a crutch during the month.

    £7.70 Teso spend, ran out of GF bread which is outrageously expensive £2.80 a loaf. Picked up another tube of toothpaste :) and some YS blackberries and a few bits of veg.

    £152 - daily available spend for tomorrow (if only!)

    Managed to offset the cost of my additional daily cup of coffee of 10p by drying out the coffee grains in the airing cupboard, mixing them with a little olive oil and using it as a facial scrub - boom!

    Taking my car for MOT and service tomorrow - desperately hoping it doesn't need any additional work doing to it as I've only got a spare £20 in the budget

    PFTP x
    Goal:to save £16,000 by 30/09/2019 claw back rental costs
    May18 -£2,954.33/£16,000
  • pennyforthepot
    pennyforthepot Posts: 652 Forumite
    edited 30 April 2018 at 7:23PM
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    Gosh - busy day today so not much time to post which is a shame given today is the big unveil of how much I've managed to save - or not as the case may be :eek: Car service was an over spend of £23.19 at a total cost of £363.19 :eek: a tad over my original estimate of £200 so I ended the month on a bit of a low.

    Given that I've not been budgeting properly for more than a few weeks I wouldn't say this is a true reflection of how a month would typically go. I had a lot of irregular costs this month including a £90 speeding course, physio, MS office renewal and a rather larger car bill and as I hadn't set up my contingency pot the money cupboard from which to take it was rather bare! On the other side my food costs were low for the month because DD spent 2 weeks in Texas with her dad, although I did have DS at home for some of that. I also ate down a lot of what was the cupboards and went without when ann ingredient was finished. So without further ado the scores on the doors are:
    • £679.00 - additional work income (unlikely to get this high again)
    • £46.12 - saving on my total spend budget of £3700
    • £1382 - money shuffle from what I had saved up from child benefit plus some wages over the last few months that was going toward a holiday.

    So that brings my total up to £2107 and leaves me with £13893 left to find. :j

    The highs:
    • £117.20 underspend on my food
    • £22 underspend on petrol
    • £25 underspend on the kids
    • £49 underspend on me
    • £44 underspend on miscellaneous

    The lows:
    • £261 overspend on unexpected costs - that's what happens when you don't have a contingency pot!

    So to summarise B+ for effort but all the savings I made were eaten up by my unexpected/irregular costs. This will not happen next month as I now have a pot for that with some money in :). Obviously with the holiday money shuffle and the additional work income which would normally be no higher than £400 I have managed to start the ball rolling but am not expecting more then £600 savings max next month.

    Off to update my signature
    PFTP x
    Goal:to save £16,000 by 30/09/2019 claw back rental costs
    May18 -£2,954.33/£16,000
  • Treadingonplaymobil
    Treadingonplaymobil Posts: 1,895 Forumite
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    That's a brilliant start, well done!

    There is nothing more tedious than making all the effort to save and having it eaten up by unexpected and unavoidable things like car costs, but not a lot you can do about it - at least if you have emergency savings pots for the future then you won't be hit so badly again.
    Trying to figure out a whole new life. Trying to figure out a whole new budget.
    Divorcing, unclear on final debt total right now, but focusing on building a financial buffer zone.
  • pennyforthepot
    pennyforthepot Posts: 652 Forumite
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    Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »
    That's a brilliant start, well done!

    There is nothing more tedious than making all the effort to save and having it eaten up by unexpected and unavoidable things like car costs, but not a lot you can do about it - at least if you have emergency savings pots for the future then you won't be hit so badly again.

    Thanks TOPM - a bit deflating to be honest when i first did the calculation but then i told myself that i would have been £300 overspent if i hadn't made the savings that I did.
    Goal:to save £16,000 by 30/09/2019 claw back rental costs
    May18 -£2,954.33/£16,000
  • pennyforthepot
    pennyforthepot Posts: 652 Forumite
    edited 1 May 2018 at 6:55AM
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    Im exhausted this morning. I had such a fitful nights sleep that I was looking at spreadsheets at 3am this morning seeing where I could shave off some more from my pots. I think it was the result of a very unexpected phone call from my ex husband (i havent spoken to him in a long time due to total lack of support he gave me when DD and DH were ill). he had rung to tell me he was moving to the States in August with his family - good riddance to him as far as im concerned, hes caused so much pain to me and my children. i did, however, tell him about my concerns over being able to pay the rent due to the drop in my investment fund to which he replied that the markets were taking a beating at the moment but not to worry because theyll be flying in 3 years. i dont have 3 months let alone 3 years.:eek: No offers to help me out then. Anyway that obviously kept me up most of the night as im really worried that the fund will have fallen again, i get my statement in a few days.

    anyway in other news, I bought a tube of own brand toothpaste yesterday - and do you know what? it was absolutely fine. It was 50p so i saved myself a good couple of pounds. Why is it Ive always thought own brand toothpaste would not do the job?

    £18.06 - Daily Available Spend (about to be decimated by a ma-hoosive shop to start the month as ive run out of just about everyhing other than snacks and toothpaste:o

    £2.97 - daily electricity spend. I underspent by £6 in April compared to last year despite the terribly cold weather weve had. Having a daily record is a massive help to keeping my spend down. At this point last year i was £307 in debt after the winter, this April im £199

    PFTP x
    Goal:to save £16,000 by 30/09/2019 claw back rental costs
    May18 -£2,954.33/£16,000
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