Saving saviours 2018

[GimbleInTheWabe]

So with an 11 week DSs falling asleep on me and his piles of stuff accumulating in mine and DPs one bed flat I know that we will have to move this year. However, I am really not good at saving money. I only have my student loan and no other debt/credit cards but I really really want to properly save this year. I've been an idiot not to save before as I have quite a well paid job (I'm self employed) and very low outgoings but I spend money on stupid things and whenever I see a "deal" which in reality is probably just clever marketing.

When I was pregnant with DS the support group I had on here was so amazing so I thought maybe if other people also want to save more in 2018 we can encourage and support each other here.

Is there anyone else out there who wants to join me?

[GimbleInTheWabe]

Here are my saving stats:

Name: GimbleInTheWabe
Financial goal: save £15,000 by June
I want to save for: a 2 bed house in SE London
Bad money habits: takeaways, buying daily food shops, online spending of clothes/Amazon, currently have no budgeting system in place

Plead add to the stats list if you can think of what else would be useful to know/write out

[FrankWelker]

Great idea Gimble
Financial Goal: save £500 or more every month for 12 months
Bad money habits: takeaways, toys, coffees, eating out, freezer full of food but buying more.

[Strawberrythief87]

I'm with you on this.
I'm saving for: a buffer for maternity leave from August.
Aiming to save :£500 a month
Bad money habits: adding unneeded things to weekly shop, meals out, currently buying food on a whim due to really fancying it (first trimester!) Not planning all expenses.

[Orangecake123]

I've got a target of £25,000 and am ideally trying to save for a flat deposit within the next 4 years, but I'm still studying at the moment and have another 3 years of my degree left- so I'm now making more of an effort to save.

I've reached 20% of my target.

[GimbleInTheWabe]

Hi everyone! Thanks for joining!

Congrats @Strawberrythief87, how many weeks are you? Is it your first? My DS (15 weeks) is currently falling asleep on my boob!

@Orangecake123 well done for saving so much already. It must be really hard to save whilst studying. Can you save any of your student loan? I've heard of people taking their loan, putting it in an account, letting the interest accrue and then paying it off and pocketing the interest  wish id had the money to do that!!

@FrankWelker glad I'm not the only takeaway fiend. Are you saving for anything in particular?

So I paid a depressing amount of tax, NI and student loan today and am left at pretty much £0 so it's a fresh start for me to really start saving and earning! It's hard finding the time to put in to finding new clients for my job but I really should. I just have to find the time between feeds and naps... DP and I started doing a meal plan for the week which has saved so much money and We're wasting so much less food so I really recommend it a go if you don't already. Is anyone else with Santander on the 123 account? It was really good when I opened it but now the interest amounts have changed it not as favourable.

[Orangecake123]

Thank you! I'm studying for my second degree so don't have a student loan. I'm 100% dependent on my mother who pays my tuition fees. I get £250 monthly because of my grandmother and around £400 a month from another aunt just for rent.

My father occasionally sends me money too but rather infrequently. I have a separate bank account for the money he sends me, which slowly adds up, with birthday and Christmas money. I usually don't touch this account- and have a direct debit to my help to buy ISA at 2% with Halifax, but I've just started so only have £1400 there at the moment. I have another regular saving account which gives 2.5 interest for a year taking money from the main account and I pay £25 every month into another Scottish friendly account I can only touch when I'm 28 so in another 2 years.

I don't keep a lot of money in my main account sometimes not more than £30 so that stops me shopping. Since october I've only bought one £5.99 belt from H&M which I needed. But i'm not allowing myself to buy anymore clothing items or make up as those were my main weaknesses. I spent a small fortune on MAC make up in the space of a year and had 32 lipsticks mostly in red and that's not including all the eyeshadow pallets , foundation, highlighters, blushes, mascara and primer too xD.

I don't have the 123 account but maybe see if you can get a better deal elsewhere?

I try to only spend the £250 a month and from that most of it just goes on food and sessions with my psychotherapist which I really need and as I have trauma and abuse in my history, but I did have to take £200 from my main account to keep everything afloat. I pay £4.99 for my brother's spotify and occasionally buy random things my younger sister needs like printer ink. I stopped going to the gym before christmas which was £26 a month. I also did massages once a week pretty much since october which sounds silly, but I've had upper back pain for the past three months. I'm trying to cut that back to once every two/three weeks or once a month.

[monkeywithacowface]

I'll join. I'd like to save £10,000 this year as we have no rainy day funds and we're both self employed with a large mortgage so we are long overdue in sorting ourselves out in this respect. We'd be in trouble pretty quick if DH couldn't work.

After that I would like to start over paying on the mortgage ideally an extra £500 a month.

I've managed to put away £550 so far since the new year. I'm hoping to increase my earnings soon and will aim to put away £1000 a month if possible. If my income stays the same I'll manage between £500-£700.

It's a massive goal though and we will need to have year where we reign in the spending so am putting on hold my original plans to redecorate and get new bathrooms this year.

[GimbleInTheWabe]

Sounds like you've got it all on the right track @Orangecake123. I'd say the therapy sessions are totally essential, sometimes these things have to be prioritised no matter the cost as your mental health is priceless. If you say you've cancelled the gym and your massages I can recommend 'Yoga With Adriene' on YouTube. She does a 30 day challenge which is really good (though I don't think I've ever done Past day 10 ) but that could help you stay for and should help your back too?
Interesting that you mention the help to buy isa too, that's definitely something I want to look into as well. My dp owns the flat we live in but we'll have to move soon and I'll have to get a mortgage but the help to buy could really help me too.

Welcome @monkeywithacowface. Sounds like a doable goal to me, though I know how hard it is projecting your earnings when you're self employed as I'm also self employed. A friend of mine has recently remortgaged as the current rates are so good. She paid to get out of her current loan to switch and she said she'll still save money as the rates are that good, might be worth exploring? Especially if you want to pay off as much as possible. If you still have the urge to redecorate could you do it on a budget. For example sometime just changing the layout of the room and swapping pictures around from different rooms can give you a fresh perspective on your surroundings, and is free too obviously!

[GimbleInTheWabe]

Also @monkeywithacowface I just remembered that before we could afford to do up our bathroom (which was awful!) I bought some grout cleaner and gave all the tiles a real deep clean. And then continued to give the rest of the bathroom a big deep clean. It looked a bit better afterwards and made me feel less embarrassed of how awful it was ha.
Also we replaced the really old bath mat with a newer one (just an Ikea jobby but the other one was on its last legs) and also replaced the wall cabinet (which we kept after we renovated it) which gave it a fresher look. A new plant and a switch around of the usual nick nacks can help refresh it too maybe?

[monkeywithacowface]

I'm not sure how we would get on changing the mortgage as we got it in 2006 at a time when they were giving away mortgages that were 5/6 our salary. I doubt we earn enough to get that sort of level currently.

I'm going to ignore bathrooms for now we've lived with them for ten years another year or two won't hurt! I absolutely do need to replace a carpet in the living room thanks to poorly elderly cat though.

[monkeywithacowface]

Also I do have it fixed in my mind that I would like to downsize and move in a couple of years so not sure how much money I want to spend on current home.

[Strawberrythief87]

How's everyone doing?

Sounds like everyones doing really well. How about you Gimble?

Yes it'll be my first, currently 10 and a half weeks so have our scan two weeks today which we're equally excited and nervous about, none of it quite feels real just yet.

My week started off quite well with a nsd yesterday but then today dh forgot to make anything for lunch (we take it in turns weekly to organise the food) so i ended up in the supermarket. Then seeing some friends tonight but thats got much cheaper since I can't drink!

I'm very happy though was looking at my bank account a couple of nights ago and realised I didn't need the money I had for the rest of the month so managed to add to my savings this month and now its at a nice round number which is strangely satisfying and unusual for me I normally do quite a bit of skimming into it!

[Orangecake123]

@GImble- I have heard of her! The most I got to was day 6. I might try starting it today though in the evening.

@strawberry- Congrats on your baby!

@monkey- that's a really good start!

[Cowardlycustard2]

I’m in! I am aiming to save £600 per month. £300 in a holiday fund and £300 in a general savings pot. We are due to go on holiday for 2 weeks in August and it’s costing £3000 for self catering in Italy inc flights. Have paid 1700 so far off it. Need to pay rest off and get spending money sorted. Was thinking maybe buy some Euros each month on payday and the can’t be tempted to spend it! My weakness’s def food shop, not meal planning properly and then always at supermarket buying extras. It’s got to stop. Also retail therapy when am fed up got to stay out of shops. Got enough clothes to sink the Titanic!

[GimbleInTheWabe]

Aw congrats @Strawberrythief87, I hope you have a nice pregnancy, I really enjoyed mine and even though being a ftm is tiring it's the best thing ever. Great news about realising you had extra cash too- kaching!

I guess after my epic tax bill I'm pretty much starting from zero so it's day for for me and super saving from here on in. Just set up a savings account for DS too and hopefully he'll have a healthy amount in it by the time he turns 18 (a whole 17 3/4 years away!!). I just need to think of saving for nnself in the same way as I do for him.

Welcome @Cowardlycustard2. Sounds like the holiday of a lifetime! Italy is such a fabulous place. I like the euro idea too as then the money is locked in almost. The only risk I suppose it that the exchange rate changes but I can't imagine it changing drastically enough that you'd really loose out financially. I really recommend meal planning. I've just started and it's saved us so much money already. Do you have dcs? I can imagine especially with dcs it can be easy to buy extras. I was never allowed the magazines/toys/sweets places at eye level in the supermarket when I was a kid and now I totally know why!! It can probably really add up.

@monkeywithacowface yes its tricky when you know you want move in the not so distant future and therefore don't want to invest a load of money in your home, unless of course it will really help to increase the value?

[Cowardlycustard2]

My DC are teens now and would not demean themselves to be seen with me in the shops, when they were little it was a nightmare trying to go to supermarket with them. Once when my youngest DC was aged about 2 she was sitting in that little child seat thing in the trolley I didn’t notice until too late that she was not only grabbing stuff as we went round but also eating it! I must have been distracted as when we got to the checkout the lady burst out laughing. My DC was sat there with a Creme Egg in each hand taking intermittent bites out of each one Def better shopping without them, don’t get me started on DH. He has been banned from the supermarket as he comes back with mega expensive stuff because he “didn’t have his glasses with him”.

[GimbleInTheWabe]

Ah it must be your DHs glasses that act as his conscience/shopping guide. Without them he's lost @Cowardlycustard2!
My dad used to buy us whatever we wanted in the shops actually now I remember. He'd always say 'did your mum say it was okay?' To which that answer was obviously no 'yes!'

[Strawberrythief87]

I know what you all mean about others doing the shopping. Me and my partner take it in turns to organise the food each week (plan, buy, cook etc) works out well but in his weeks we always end up with some impulse buys coming back!
Two nsd in a row here, helped that i forgot my purse yesterday though...Would like to make it three but I suspect we might get pizza tonight as I've been really fancying it the past few days (more for the dough in a pizza oven than anything else otherwise I'd make it at home)
Got paid by one of my roles yesterday so transferred over my savings so good to know thats done

[Orangecake123]

I was very tempted to go to the supermarket on my way back but I'm glad I walked past as I would have added extra things to my basket instead of just picking up on item. So yesterday was a real no spend day.

I'm thinking of taking a break from therapy for a month- just to see how I get on without him. I've had two sessions a week since I started around 10 months ago with three sessions once when I was very unstable-but I've been on one session for the past 3 months because of my school schedule. Last week we did two sessions and I've paid £80 for this week as well as I have another exam coming up soon. Potential saving is a shocking £320 or £160 if i'd stuck with one session.

[Orangecake123]

*one

[MessySurfaces]

Orange that's not something you can focus too much on the cost of though, as long as you do have the money. Why don't you try once a fortnight?

[Orangecake123]

I'll ask if can go once every other week- but I'm pretty sure he won't think that would be a good idea, neither would the month thing. I have borderline personality disorder and was actively suicidal the year before I started therapy. I'm not 100% better but not where I was. I don't expect a quick fix because it took me 20+ years of getting to the point that I did but it's tiring and if I'm honest I'm just looking for reason to quit.

[Orangecake123]

how is everyone else going?

[MessySurfaces]

Heh, orange that's a thing to bring up in the sessions then... xxx