Saving for my first bricks and mortar...

Dizzy_Ditzy · 1 June 2018 at 9:08AM

Hi everyone!

I've been having a little read of other people's stories on here so thought I'd start my own, hoping it'll keep me on track :rotfl:

About me. I'm early 40's and have been renting forever. We have been very lucky with the landlord and not had a rent increase for 10 years, until now. He wanted to increase our rent by half again :eek: I worked out how much rent we'd paid to him over the years and was :eek::eek: , and I realised that I could be paying that on my own house. That's how I ended up here!

I earn below the national average and live in one of the most expensive cities outside of London for house prices. I'm able to put away between £200-£250 a month at the mo but that should change in my favour in the next month or so, to put more away. I've a HTB ISA and "high" interest saving account and a pot at home for odd coins.

I've a very long way to go on this so thought that keeping a diary here might help keep me focused when I find it difficult

savingwannabe · 1 June 2018 at 9:15AM

Hello Dizzy, you will fit right in. We have the loveliest people on here so you are v welcome!!!! This diary is helping me to keep on track too. Knowing other people are in it with us is v inspiring and usually prevents me from being silly and overspending. Have a good day.

Dizzy_Ditzy · 1 June 2018 at 12:58PM

savingwannabe wrote: »

Hello Dizzy, you will fit right in. We have the loveliest people on here so you are v welcome!!!! This diary is helping me to keep on track too. Knowing other people are in it with us is v inspiring and usually prevents me from being silly and overspending. Have a good day.

Thanks! It’s good too to see other people’s tips as well as hopefully pass on some of my own :rotfl:

I did have a post typed up to give a bit more info but it lost connection and I lost my post. I will be back with more in a bit

Dizzy_Ditzy · 1 June 2018 at 1:06PM

Right, hopefully I wont lose this one!

I think my best, and probably only option is to go for shared ownership, for a number of reasons but mostly because I can;t see me getting a mortgage for £200K on my salary at my age. Also, going for SO means that by the end of next year or early the year after, I;d be in a position to buy whereas going for the full whack may mean that it would be another two or three years before I could look at buying.

Where am I saving money?

I haven;t bought lunch at work since 6th April. I haven;t bought a soft drink for work since 6th April. By doing this, I have saved about £100 in eight weeks.

I;m using the food I have in my freezers. I should probably explain at this point that I!m mainly around on the Elite thread, which has taught me pretty much everything I know about saving money :rotfl: I do a weekly meal plan and do my weekly shop based around that, and my work lunches. My weekly shop at the moment is around £12-20, for two adults and a cat.

I live in the clearance aisle at Sainsburys, waiting to pounce on the 20p items. This week was Fairy washing up liquid and now I have enough oblast me until Christmas and beyond :rotfl:

I am in the process of sorting stuff out at home to sell.

I have an allotment so grow all my fruit and veg where I can. I also have hens so dont need to buy eggs for most of the year

I have been saving all my £2 coins and when there is a reasonable amount of those I will get them banked and transferred.

I still have the odd ;treat; every now and again so that I don;t feel like I am depriving myself. Once a week it might be a pain au raisin or doughnut and once a month I will have a takeaway.

I am sure that there are people who would tell me that I can save more money by doing this and doing that but for the moment, I am happy with my efforts.

I am looking forward to putting my thoughts, successes and struggles into black and white and seeing/sharing everyone elses

savingwannabe · 1 June 2018 at 6:58PM

OMG this is brilliant. My friend 3 dogs (who visits regularly) lives on the elite thread.

This is so inspiring already. It's great that you grow your own veg and have chickens. You sound v healthy.

Your grocery bill is amazing and I would definitely learn from that. I will try to buy more whoopsies when I am on off work in the summer as I will have more time. I don't drive so visiting the supermarket is rather expensive for me. I can only go once a week unless I walk which is hard work.

I sold stuff on ebay and made some money but carboots and gumtree are good too. Have you thought of switching current accounts as that brings in a lot of money quickly but it might affect your credit score.

SO is good, I know some people at work who have done it.

mylastpound · 1 June 2018 at 7:40PM

Dizzy_Ditzy wrote: »

My weekly shop at the moment is around £12-20, for two adults and a cat.

Impressive! How? ive just done mine on the supermarket comparison site and it was £43

Dizzy_Ditzy · 1 June 2018 at 8:57PM

savingwannabe wrote: »

OMG this is brilliant. My friend 3 dogs (who visits regularly) lives on the elite thread.

This is so inspiring already. It's great that you grow your own veg and have chickens. You sound v healthy.

Your grocery bill is amazing and I would definitely learn from that. I will try to buy more whoopsies when I am on off work in the summer as I will have more time. I don't drive so visiting the supermarket is rather expensive for me. I can only go once a week unless I walk which is hard work.

I sold stuff on ebay and made some money but carboots and gumtree are good too. Have you thought of switching current accounts as that brings in a lot of money quickly but it might affect your credit score.

SO is good, I know some people at work who have done it.

We haven't seen 3Dogs around for a while, hope she's ok

I thought about switching bank accounts but I'm not brave enough for that yet :rotfl:

mylastpound wrote: »

Impressive! How? ive just done mine on the supermarket comparison site and it was £43

Re my shopping bill - it helped massively that they were full when I started this, I was able to list the contents and work out weekly menus from that. Weekly shop is for stuff to go with it, like veg during the off season, yogurt and lunch bits, 45p for a loaf of bread, 79p ish for milk and so on. I'm very lucky that I have Aldi, Lidl and Iceland on my doorstep and a fab butcher who does lots of offers and delivers :rotfl:. I can get 30+ meals from one of his meat boxes

Also, as mentioned above, I do very well from Sainsburys 20p items. I've had multipacks of tomatoes, washing up liquid, stuffing, shampoo/conditioner, kilo packs of raisins/sultanas and all sorts of other stuff. All comes in handy!

Skint_yet_Again · 2 June 2018 at 6:52AM

Hi Dizzy good luck on your savings & house buying. You sound like you are really organised with your food budget I'm hoping for some tips as mine has got out of hand recently

savingwannabe · 2 June 2018 at 9:02AM

It's fab that you live close to the shops and that you have chosen to post on this forum. We feel honoured as you are vvvv smart.

3Dogs is okish. We are a bit concerned too as she hasn't been too well recently and she is coming next week to stay for a while so we can check she is ok.

Switching accounts is vvv simple now. They do it all for you. All you have to do is tell your employer your new account details and also ring the dd you have switched too. In all the switches I have done only two minor mistakes happened (two dd's didn't switch properly) but when I rang the companies to explain they were fine. I must have made £600 at least in the last few years from this.

Dizzy_Ditzy · 3 June 2018 at 9:55AM

This weeks shopping went a bit over budget at £26 but it's payday weekend so there were a few treats to see me through the month. Also, having a week off work was a bit tricky but back to work tomorrow so back to planning lunch and snacks and being back on track again. I've got £16 in my purse so that will see me through the week easily

savingwannabe · 3 June 2018 at 10:45AM

Morning, £16 is a quite a bit. Well done on good food shop. :j

I hope you have good weather near you.

Saving for my first bricks and mortar...

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