No spend September

[Kaloobear]

Right, I'm going to nick a little bit of space on this board to do a money diary like on MSE. Just for me really but if anyone fancies reading and throwing the odd encouraging comment my way that'd be lovely Likewise anyone who wants to join me is very welcome!

So, here are my rules:

Money spent on bills, insurance and pre-planned food shops is fine.
Everything else is not.

NO...
Coffees (especially not as an excuse to sit down somewhere in town)
Sandwiches
Magazines
Books (even on kindle, I have at least 10 on there I haven't read yet)
Music
Kitbag peanut butter chunkies (sob)
Meals out
Takeaways
Spontaneous 'presents' for DD (11mo) who is far too young to even realise or care, including clothes-she has plenty!
Clothes (even tights, which I have a weird compulsion to buy every time I see them )
Shoes
Unnecessary household goods-we have enough loo roll and bleach to last until 2020
Toiletries-I MUST use up the lovely things I've already got and stop buying more
Make up, under any circumstances
Alcohol (we don't drink much though so that's pretty easy)
Putting anything on the credit card except groceries (always pay it off and like to use it so we get the air miles-the problem is using it for little things, forgetting and then being surprised by the bill!)

YES...
Packed lunches for work
Walking or cycling to work-if I drive that's fine but I'm not allowed any more petrol so the half tank in there has got to last till October!
Reminding myself that we are lucky, we live well, and we do not need any more STUFF
Reminding myself that having bought a house we need to SAVE because our emergency pot is gone

Today and yesterday don't count because I only thought of doing this this afternoon, but for full disclosure...

Saturday 1st September
Cheese, crackers, beer and wine for friends having a BBQ, Tesco, about £15

Sunday 2nd September
2 snickers, 2 diet cokes, magazine , stupidly expensive corner shop, £4.86
Diary for work, Waterstones, £12.99
Big food shop, Waitrose, £86.94

Tomorrow I'm back at work for the first time in a year (sob, bye bye maternity leave) so the upside is that I shouldn't need to spend any money, and the same on Tuesday. On Wednesday I'm meeting my NCT group so I need to remember to take a packed lunch for DD and resist eating lunch in a cafe myself-I can wait till I get home! (I'd take a packed lunch for me but I don't think Starbucks would like it.) On Thursday I'm at work in the morning and then off in the afternoon, so think DD and I will go to the library and make sure we eat at home. Friday is a very long work day with lunch provided. Saturday I'm going to the theatre and do have to buy train tickets to get there, so I'm going to do that in advance and hopefully get them a bit cheaper. The theatre tickets were bought ages ago. Sunday we shall go to church and the park if it's nice weather, we will not go and spend money needlessly.

Fingers crossed.

£6 in asda,

£1 school bus fair.

Yesterday was a NSD and today has been so far but its not over yet

I put £13.36 into the bank today which was the contents of our change pig! We kept dipping into it to buy chocolate and the like so I figure it's safest in the bank.

NSD here, though we're out of bread for tomorrow's lunches. Am hoping I can convince DP that a pitta instead is acceptable so we don't have to spend anything!

NSD today! I spent £9 in Asda yesterday which wasn't planned as ds has a cold so I bought one of those plug in decongestant things for £5. The other £4 was on short dated food so not needed but will help to keep next weeks big shop down as I got stuff for 5 good meals. They had extra special merguez sausages for 80p a pack so I got 3! Think I'm doing ok, might even have money left at the end of the month :)

Well done EnglishGirl! I think we might have a little bit left over too, which feels like a bloody miracle! We're definitely going to get to the end of the month with nothing on our credit cards except the car insurance (to be paid off on payday), which hasn't happened for years. Am delighted!

I thought it was going to be a NSD but the window cleaner knocked on the door - £15 gone. Not worried though as its budgeted for and I was expecting to pay it out when he got round to collecting it.

Otherwise didn't spend anything yesterday or today

hmm, accidentally spent £2.63 in Tesco and M&S but got loads of lovely end of day reductions - posh prawns, chicken pakoras, watermelon, 2 nice sandwiches for tomorrow's lunch!

You got a LOT for under £3!!

NSD here again, though I'm craving a coke. Hopefully I won't cave in!

Oops, just realised that's not true as I paid the cleaner for this week and next. But that's part of the budget so all ok and otherwise a NSD.

Another NSD

Need to do a food shop tomorrow and DD has announced she's grown out of her ballet shoes so tomorrow looks expensive :(

Spent just under £30 this morning on food and drink for DD's birthday party this afternoon. Tomorrow will be grocery shop day (am aiming for £45 for the three of us) and then am not planning to spend anything for the rest of the week. If all goes to plan I should finish the month with about £200 left which will be ploughed straight into savings...

NSD here £175.10 left to last until Friday (payday) and I've decided not to do a big shop as we have masses in the freezer. I'm going to need to buy bread for sandwiches and yoghurt for DD but apart from that am going to avoid grocery shopping until Friday, when we've got people coming to stay again and I'll need to go and stock up for the weekend.

£20 in asda and £23 in sports direct on trainers and football boots today, but Fri and Sat were NSD

Hopefully I can get away with minimum food spending for the rest of the week.

Have just applied for an ISA with £100 of what's left this month. I'll get paid £18 on Monday and £60 on Thursday so including that I should still have about £150 left at the end of the month to go into savings.

I've been talking to DH and reading a lot on the MSE forum and we've decided to try and overpay on our mortgage at the same time as building up our savings. The mortgage is £615 and we're only allowed to overpay 20%, which is about £123 each month. Anything in excess of that that we can scrabble together will go into the new ISA, and once that's full into DH's. I've got a regular saver that is due to finish next month; that will pay out £3000 plus a bit of interest so that will go straight into the ISA and make a good start on this year's tax free allowance. In order to fill it by April we'd have to pay just over £400 a month into it, which will be pretty difficult on top of an extra £123 into the mortgage. Essentially we're looking for an extra £550 a month...

Argh!

Oh, I should also get the child benefit this week, so it should be about £235 left for savings at the end of the month :)

Hi

I've only just discovered this thread and haven't read the whole lot but I think it's a great idea. You have done really well by the looks of it.

Can I ask, do you usually have money left over at the end of the month? Just trying to judge how successful it's been.

Hi mrsm :) I'm doing it because I want to get next years holiday paid off by the end of october. I don't want to try and save for it over xmas and in January I want to start saving for holiday clothes and money. We usually end up paying for it al at the last minute and it being very stressful!
No spend weekend for me but I won an ebay lot last night so I wil be spending £15 today.

Crap! haven't even got up yet and I have already spent just over £19 on a new watch and a book for my Kindle. I did manage to list 3 things on ebay last night though.

Hello mrsm I get paid weekly and it's not the same amount every week, so I don't really look at my income on a monthly basis. I do have to pay bills monthly though, so have set up standing orders to move the necessary funds from my main account into a second current account that I've set up just for bills on the 1st of every month.

Kaloobear I am so impressed by your savings plan! You're an inspiration :)

holla kindle books are lethal, it's far to easy to press buy. I have 42 unread books but still bought the Jilly Cooper back catalogue the other week

mrsm I almost never have money left over at the end of the month, so I'm counting September a success!

Thanks Holla Let's hope it all works!!

Phoned the bank this morning and got them to set up the overpayment to go out automatically with the mortgage direct debit. I want us to get used to it and essentially treat it as though it's the normal payment, so we stop missing it.

Also phoned the RAC, who we're due to renew with next month, and said I was going to leave as the AA is offering the same cover for £40 less. What do you know, they matched it! So I'm rather pleased about that

Annoyingly my tutee for this evening has cancelled due to illness, so no £18 from him this week.

I'm going to Asda on the way back from work to buy bread, milk and yoghurt, and apart from that not doing any grocery shopping until Friday.

I'm loving this no spend idea, I'm going to start in October.

Me too mrsm68

I spend way too much!

This thread is definitely going to turn into 'No Spend October'! DH has agreed that we can try out very austere living until Christmas and then reassess and see how easy/difficult it's been and whether we need to extend our self-imposed deadlines in the name of having some fun or whether we can continue down the route of scrimping for longer. Personally I'm viewing it as a bit of a challenge and am fairly confident that we can make a good go of it-the only thing we did differently this month was not buy too much crap, so I don't feel like we've suffered in any way. It will be interesting on Friday to see exactly how much I get paid as this contract is new and I'm not sure how it's going to work out after tax etc.

Work have offered me two more lessons a week which should help, fingers crossed.

Well I seem to have bought a steam mop today So that was £30. NSD tomorrow though, in fact I'm doing some overtime!