The Plan

A question about : The Plan

Hi there!

I've been using this forum for a few years now to read up on lots of money and saving questions and I thought it was maybe time to post something

2014 and 15 are going to be pretty big years for me as I am doing up my flat and my bf and I are planning on ticking something off of our bucket list - hiking Machu Picchu!

To stay motivated in saving for both of these major things I have decided to start a money saving diary, and when better to start it than new years!

I have already made a start to be more frugal by setting myself a budget of Ј60/week. This is to cover all food, toiletries, grooming, petrol, nights out and miscelanious items. I managed this for all of December so I would like to keep it up in 2014.

Secondly I just re-mortgaged through a fees free whole of market broker. This has saved me around Ј180/month, all of which will be going into savings.

I hope to keep my posting up daily Looking forward to spending 2014 with the MSE community

MotiMoo

Best answers:

• Today was a holiday for me and all I had planned to do was visit a couple of friends so I thought it would be a NSD. I decided to walk to both visits as they are so close to my home, and on the way to friend one I stopped in at the local shop and bought a little treat for the two of us.
  So today I spent Ј3.41 at the local shop, and then another friend messaged me that he had a couple of my things (he leaves for Australia tomorrow) so I had to drive over to his place to pick them up. I'm not sure of the petrol cost but it was something.
  It's not terrible and still within my budget as I still have Ј46.59 for the rest of the week. I didn't eat any other food out as I made a ham salad sandwich before I went out and I didn't end up having time for dinner tonight so will just make up for it at breakfast.
  My other resolutions (eating healthy and exercise) were also kind of to pot but I will try again tomorrow
• Back to work today *sigh*.
  Toast at home for breakfast instead of the vending machine at work. I spent Ј1.50 on a tuna baked potato for lunch which was naughty of me as I could have made a ham sandwich to take in if I had got up a little earlier in the morning. Dinner was a stew I had taken out of the freezer and some fresh mashed potato (my fave).
  I was going to drive up north to my family home tonight but my brother messaged me and said he needed me to pick something up in the city tomorrow morning, so I will drive home straight after.
  So instead I have done some research into other possible money savings. I checked my council tax banding, luckily for me it is in line with the rest of the street and is second from bottom so is more than likely correct. Since I am also about to re-mortgage my house I looked at the exit fee I am being charged by Santander, and although I am paying what was set out in my contract in 2010 the fee I am paying is Ј70 higher than Santander's current one. I am going to write a very nice and polite letter asking if they could see to reduce my fee in line with what they now charge and see what they say, nothing ventured nothing gained.
  Tomorrow is going to be a BIG spend day...I'm getting my bathroom vanity unit! YAY. That has allready been saved for so no other spending is really required. Looking forward to tomorrow already!!!!!
• Bathroom vanity (sink, tap, toilet and toilet seat included), matching wall cabinet and mirror bought! Woohooo! The whole lot is costing me Ј1000 delivered.
  I haven't added up the total of the bathrrom yet but I'm thinking around Ј2300. This is slightly less than I had anticipated so within the budget that I have saved up. I will find out the delivery date tomorrow for the vanity unit and from there I will have the date for installation.
  I CAN'T WAIT !!!!!! My current bathroom is older than me, and I'm the same vintage as the Spanish world cup!
  That aside, I spent Ј1 today on chocolate biscuits to take home with me. There again I failed in an NSD due to chocolate! The petrol cost of driving home was budgeted for this month, I considered taking the train but the cost was around the same.
  Perhaps when the bathroom is all done I will post some before and after pictures. Then everyone can see my awful bathroom and why it was worth saving for three years!
• Today was a pretty lazy day Just how Sundays should be.
  As I mentioned yesterday I totted up the cost of the bathroom parts I am supplying and its Ј2395.44, below the Ј2500 I had saved for it. I am just waiting for the plumber's quote for the parts he is supplying and labour, which I have another Ј2500 saved up for. Fingers crossed its under .
  As for spending today I gave my mum Ј5 for a picture that she wanted to buy so that was the only cash laid out. I definitely went over the normal amount of petrol coming back from my mum's this evening as there was an accident on the road and I had to take an hour long diversion. I hope no one was hurt .
  I didn't do my usually weekly shop at Lidl today as I still have food from last week, hopefully I will get another week without food shopping if I stretch it out. In turn that will hopefully balance out the extra on petrol this evening. So, no sweet treats this week MotiMoo!!!
  It is my brother's, his wife's and my nephew's birthday the week after next so I will have to budget in gifts and cards. I hear about people doing Consumer Pulse and other surveys online and getting vouchers. Those would make great gifts but I don't know anything about these online surveys, anyone give me some tips?
• The first proper day of work in 2014 , wasn't too bad but I need to get out of holiday mode!
  Today was an NSD for me, didn't have breakfast () and took a sandwich to work for lunch. Dinner was mashed potato (told you it was my fave), beans and Linda McCartney sausages.
  I went round to my friend's this evening for a gaming session. I'm going toadmit it, I'm a big geek. We play pathfinder, which is a variant of dungeons and dragons, where you sit round a big map with little characters and role dice. Although it may seem quite sad I enjoy it as a) all the information you need to play is online for free and b) it's very sociable and an entertaining way of spending an evening without spending any money !
  Apart from not spending money I also looked at further ways of saving money today. I saw on the MSE website about the First Direct current account with the linked regular saver which has 6% interest. Although it isn't tax free like an ISA it’s an equivalent savings rate of over 3% which is more than I would get in the top paying ISA at the moment. When bf gets home we are going to talk about what we may do about it. I also went onto my company intranet and looked at some of the benefits we get offered. The most interesting was a voucher scheme, where we pay money into an account and from there we can draw down funds into vouchers for various shops like ASDA. The vouchers are also discounted, so for every Ј10 you spend you can get up to Ј1 off depending on the shop. Something to consider if I need anything specific.
  Work started on my driveway this morning, more exciting home improvement as right now the drive is usually a large lake with mud and slimey leaves. I will take a picture tomorrow and see if I can upload it here for a before, and when the work is done I will show the after. I hope it will look good as my share is costing Ј200!
• Today has not been very productive . I still can't seem to get out of holiday season mode, today at work I just coasted. This is not good, although I am not busy busy I am better to get ahead of the game as I will be busy pretty soon.
  On the upside today was an NSD. Lunch was 1/2 a tin of beef broth and a tuna sandwich. Dinner was the rest of the baked beans from yesterday with more mashed potato and Linda McCartney sausages. I thought I was a fairly adventurous cook but when I actually write down what I eat it doesn't seem that way!
  Tomorrow might have to be a spending day as I will be needing loo roll and toothpaste. I am going to have a look to see any good deals on loo roll at the moment, as for the toothpaste I'm committed to buying cruelty free toiletries so that means either Sainsbury, Co-op or Superdrug own brand for me. There are probably loads on the internet but I live pretty close to all of those shops.
  I recently found some receipts that I had thought I had lost which were from a business trip in May. I got those submitted today so in my next pay I should get a good chunk to squirrel away into the kitchen fund. Looking over the receipts I just had to shake my head, Ј16 for a sandwich in Norway !!!
  Lastly I got the letter written up for my bank asking for them to justify my Ј295 mortgage exit fee when it is now only Ј225 for newer borrowers. I used the template from the mortgage exit fee article on MSE and tried to make sure the letter was very polite but also firm. I'll post the outcome.
• Well that’s “hump day” over with. Only two days to the weekend, not that I've had an overly taxing week!
  I had a check up today at the doctor, and they took my blood pressure. It wasn’t great . I really need to do something about my lack of exercise and poor eating, but the motivation to actually take myself along to the gym and stay away from chocolate is sadly often lacking. What is particularly bad is I have a gym membership to a very nice gym, but I think of great excuses to not go:
• I have meetings very early in the morning (7.15am) and the gym doesn’t open till 6.30am so I can’t go then;
• I work too far away to go in my lunch break;
• I am often doing things in the evening that don’t leave me much time to gym, eat and do the planned activity.

My membership is up for renewal in February and I am seriously considering not taking it back up. Perhaps my best bet would just be to find a cheaper gym and somehow find a system of motivation for myself. Any suggestions on that topic would be most welcome!
So to day was that spend day I had predicted yesterday, and I have decided I distinctly don’t like supermarkets. Everything about them is just designed to get your money . I went online to see where I would get the things I needed cheapest and luckily for me it was at my closest one. So off I toodle with my bag for life, and walk out 20mins later Ј7 lighter. Admittedly a small amount of that was on chocolate, another will powerfailure , but a couple of the other things were items which caught my eye because they were on deal and I thought “oh I’ll get that because it’s a good deal”. Silly MotiMoo.
Well anyway, at least I’m doing well on the using-up-of-the-food-in-my-house front . I had an oinion, two parsnips and a leek in my fridge so I made a sort of curried soup for lunch, it was pretty darn good if I do say so myself. Then I had tuna pasta salad for dinner, using up salad goods in my fridge.
Let’s hope tomorrow is an NSD!

• Another NSD for me this week which was a struggle, because I really wanted to buy something sweet ! I resisted however, I’m sure I will feel the benefit tomorrow, definitely not feeling it tonight.
  Lunch was the rest of the tin of soup I opened at work on Tuesday and two slices of toast. Dinner was some chilli out of the freezer and brown rice, with another slice of bread. I have the rest of the chilli to eat for tomorrow’s dinner. Not sure what to eat for lunch tomorrow though.
  I phoned up my gym this morning and asked them if they could see how many times I have gone since I took out my membership in February last year….62 times . That works out at under Ј5 per visit so cheaper than a day pass to any gym where I live, but still. I think it is probably best I stop the membership in Feb, save myself the almost Ј300 and the guilt. It does mean I am going to have to be more proactive about my exercise in other ways.
  Tonight’s entertainment was playing video games with my friend this evening, walked over to save the petrol. We are going to hang out again tomorrow evening so that we can prepare for the big campaign game we are going to start with our little group. Looking forward to it already.
• That's great MotiMoo. I have enjoyed reading your spending diary. I would help if you could put how much you are saving every month and what your expenses are? Like an SOA kind of thing.
  But keep going and I am sure you will have that money saved in no time
• OOOppppssss I meant saving diary and not spending
• Hi Littlemiss, coming back to a comment on my diary was a nice surprise! I have laid out my monthly and annual expenditure below:
  Mortgage - Ј675 (I overpay by about double)
  Electric - 83/month
  Life Insurance - 11.33/month
  Car payment - 275.85/month
  Council Tax - 95/month
  Cineworld - 15.90/month
  Account fee - 2/month
  Contents Insurance - 41.07/year
  Buildings Insurance - 115.22/year
  Car Insurance - I will have to go look this up after work but I pay it in a lump sum and I think it was around the Ј250 mark.
  Christmas - Ј400/year
  Gifts - Ј100/year
  Clothes/shoes - I haven't bought any in about a year
  I don't have internet, home phone or a tv and my mobile phone is paid for by my employer.
  I take Ј60 out each Monday and this money buys all of my food shopping for the week for myself, the cat and when he is home my bf. I also buy petrol, toiletries and anything for the house from this.
  So adding up my monthly expenditure and the Ј60 per week that comes to Ј1398.88. This should leave me Ј600 per month to save. My electric DD is supposed to be going up to Ј93 a month but because i am moving mortgages the amount I pay to that will be drasctically reduced.
  When I know my new mortgage and electric payments I will repost about this.
  Thanks Littlemiss, it was nice to meet you
• Ohhhh Ј600 each month, nice.
• Thank you for that Motimoo I put Ј600 in my savings every month too. I am saving up for a house deposit so fingers crossed. I used to be very bad with savings and used to spend all my money on clothes, shoes and handbags. But I have been very good since January last year.
  Reading how everyone else is doing does give me ideas where I can save more money.
  It is very nice meeting you too Motimoo
• I guess I should do a diary update since I am DAYS behind schedule!
  Friday - This ended up being a bit of a splurge day . I bought a snack and a sandwich from the van in the morning as I didn't take in anything for lunch and the thought of a pancake was too much. In the evening I had a friend come over to stay so I bought some nice food in for dinner. In total I spent Ј10. I'm going to have to keep on top of Fridays as one of my ways to 'wind down' is eat. Perhaps I should make Fridays a more active evening.
  Saturday - The morning was spent chatting with my friend and doing bits and bobs of housework at the same time. After lunch I dropped my friend off at her place and I went to pick up OH from the airport. We went to Tesco together and he got his oat milk for the week and also a whole bunch of Quorn chicken peices as they are half price right now. We then stopped by the Co-op as they had some nice fish cakes half price as well as Linda McCartney sausages. He paid for all of that so it isn't coming out of my budget for the week. After putting away all of the groceries we headed out to the cinema, stopping in M&S on the way just for a looksee. We managed to get sandwiches for 30p, so that was dinner sorted .
  Sunday - I had a nice long lie in which was great! OH came round for lunch and we went grocery shopping after. We went to both Aldi and Lidl and got the weeks shopping for under Ј20, and that was including some alcohol that OH wanted. He had never shopped at either place before and was really surprised at the savings, perhaps another MSE convert? We went to the cinema after the shops and stopped in at M&S again just in case there were any more cheap sandwiches, and score! Dinner for 60p again
  Monday - My bathroom furniture was meant to arrive today and OH sat at mine all day watching Dexter only for nothing to show . Today would have been a no spend day but I had to buy bread because I forgot to buy some yesterday. I took lunch with me to work and for dinner OH and I had Turkey (finally used up all the food from my freezer) with mashed potato and roasted carrots, parsnip and leek. I walked round to my friend's house and we finished levelling up one of my other characters for a game we are going to play on Wednesday. I love free dorky entertainment
• Tuesday was an easy NSD for me as I sat at home waiting for the rest of my bathroom to be delivered. My living room now looks like a warehouse.
  I had leftovers from the night before for lunch and for dinner I made fried rice (we have too much brown rice sitting in the larder) and the last of the fish cakes from the Co-op.
  My plumber was supposed to come round with the electrician to go over everything that needs to be done before installing my bathroom but the electrician had double booked himself so it has been postponed for another evening.
  I got an email from Santander saying they had received my letter about the mortgage exit fee. Let's see what happens.
• Hi Motimoo,
  I agree with you its so difficult not to spend on anything, I have some months which are better than others!
  I am saving like you but to pay the last Ј5,000 owing on my mortgage, also with Santander.
  I was going to mention, when are your buildings and contents insurance due? I have just taken out a new policy this month from legal and general, they are offering Ј100 back in M&S vouchers if you take out a policy with them. I did this with them a year or two back. You have to wait 3 months after you've started the policy for the vouchers, but still worth doing. Think I paid Ј144 for the year but will get the Ј100 back, my current insurer was offering renewal for Ј136, so well worth swapping insurer.
  I tried quorn chicken pieces for the first time the other day, they really are brilliant! much cheaper than chicken (I will only buy the happy chicken meat on principal) and when I put them in fajitas or spicy pasta etc you wouldn't even know the difference between that and chicken!
• Hi Greenninja,
  Wow just Ј5000 left on your mortgage! That's impressive, I think that once I am in my forever home I will aim to pay off my mortgage as soon as I possibly can.
  I only took out the insurance a few months ago, it should be another 8-9 months till I need to renew, but that deal you mentioned sounds excellent! I think the next time I go to renew I will check the cashback websites as well as the comparison websites.
  Quorn chicken is amazing! I love the stuff, as well as quorn mince. In dishes with a sauce of flavouring I always use quorn as I am perfectly happy with the texture and you are getting some low fat protein. The only time I use actual meat is if the meal is based on it, like steak (which I get from an organic farm next to my work) or roast chicken (I'm hoping to source some local organic free range chicken from a farm shop a little bit aways from me).
  Nice to meet you Greenninja!
• Diary Update!
  Wednesday was a big fail on the NSD front! I bought another pancake from the van I forgot my lunch again so bought a baked potato and I was gaming with the wild bunch so I took along doritos and a bottle of dr pepper . I think it was just over Ј5 for the day. Too many frowny faces! On a plus point I made stir fry for dinner, garlic, onion, mushrooms, sweet pepper and spring greens. It was epic.
  Thursday wasn't as bad but it wasn't an NSD, I bought a chocolate bar from the vending machine at work . I only had a couple of hours in the office today so I was home a little earlier. I had to get in touch with the place where I got my bathroom furniture because one of the cabinets was made badly. I emailed pictures and I am having another cabinet sent out, probably coming Monday. Other than that OH and I stayed in, had stir fry for dinner and watched the last two episodes of The Wire season 2
• Work was a big struggle today, things are starting to pile up a little but I can't seem to get myself out of snail pace! I need a kick up the bum!
  After work I had planned on having a relaxing evening at home on my todd, perhaps a hair treatment or a face mask. OH was going out with his friends, which would mean he wouldn't be home till 3-4am and hungover on Saturday. His work scuppered all of that though as he was called to work over the weekend. The sweetheart that he is, cancelled his evening to spend time with me instead as I now won't see him over the weekend.
  It does mean that it ended up not being an NSD for me as we went to the cinema and I naughtily bought some reduced christmas choccies in Aldi (49p for a lindt reigndeer! ). I was saved from spending any more by the slushie machine in the cinema not working.
  We went to see the Railway Man, it was quite harrowing. The 2nd world war in the far east is something I have only recently come to know much about, there is a lot they don't teach you in standard grade history!