That's January done then!

Today's final addition for the month is just £9.23 from eBay. This takes my running total to:

£369.63

Not bad at all for the first month, I'm delighted with this! It WILL slow down though - I have three holidays booked this year for starters, and my daughter turns 18 too.

So my targets for February look like this:

Original Monthly Target: (£2014÷12) = £167
Balance-Based Monthly Target: (£1644.37÷11) = £149.49

Progress is slowing!

Today's contributions are a little slim - £1.58 'oddses' and £6.58 eBay. I've listed a lot of my

old clothes this morning on eBay and have yet more to do, and I'm trying to pluck up the courage and motivation to actually DO a car boot sale - but it's just SO COLD!! The poor soul in this picture rather resembles my good self in proportions!

Running total:

£360.40

Today's additions..

Quidco payment - £2.33
'oddses' - £4.95
eBay - £7.19

I walked to the shops today as I'm trying to keep to my petrol budget of £20 per week. This had the added bonus that I wasn't tempted to overspend as I'd have to carry it home! On my walk I found another twenty pence in assorted small coins for my 'found money' pot. I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Treasury estimate for money 'lost' on the streets of Britain runs into millions of pounds. I'd quite like to find those millions!

Running total:

£352.04

Hurrah!

Moved across £1.20 in 'oddses' and £5.65 from eBay - meaning I have now hit two months target! I have a healthy cushion now for when I start to run out of steam (and things to sell)!

Running total:

£337.57

I plan now to have two concurrent targets per month - the first will be £167, which is the original 1/12th of the total. The second will be an actual division of the remaining total. So for example, if I didn't add any more to my fund this month, I'd start February with two targets, one being £167, and the alternative being £152.42. That's 1/11th of £1676.63, which is the total left to do in the year.

I hope this makes sense!

Bingo Cashback

Went to Gala Bingo tonight with my friend, they had a special offer on whereby you received £5 cashback. This was particularly good value since it was only £4 to play anyway! I planned to put the £1 profit into my fund but on reflection have put the whole fiver in - I would have gone to bingo anyway even if there had not been cashback, so the £5 was all bonus money.

Running total:

£330.52

Qmee

I followed a link from someone else's blog ( I wish I could remember who to thank them!) to Qmee, which is a little thing you add to your toolbar and when you search for stuff as normal, a little box pops up suggesting links and you get paid a few pennies for clicking the links (all safe shopping sites). I just requested my payment of what I had built up yesterday, got £1.19 into my paypal account immediately. Ok so it's not millions but I was only searching google like I normally would. This is my referral link, if you join I get 50p when you first request your cashout.

http://qm.ee/0B3D2D80

Another £1.19 into the pot, plus a couple of quid from eBay overnight.

Running total:


£325.52

Oops!

I managed to sign out of my blog and then forgot the password to get back in! Remembered it eventually though!

This weekend I have sold a couple more eBay items and have reinvested some of the money at the local car boot sales to get a few more bits to sell. I am registered as a Business Seller on eBay so I'm covered for tax purposes, and I'm self-employed in my day job so I have to do an annual return anyway (sob!). Feeling quite hopeful that I've picked up one or two profitable items this weekend!

Transferred a few more £'s in 'oddses' and about £7 from eBay - bit rubbish at finding money in the street this weekend though, I only managed two pennies!

Running total:

£315.56

Just call me DelBoy...!

Yesterday morning when I popped into Asda (for yet more printer ink - why is it that the colours run out about three days after each other? Why can't they all go at once so you'd buy a multipack? I've replaced three in three weeks costing me almost £30, and a pack of four is only £33! - but I digress...) .. where was I.. ah yes, when I popped into Asda, there was a large rollercage with reduced homewares in it. 
Most of it was of no use to me but I spotted a ceiling light fitting, one of those which has five arms and a globe on each arm, and uses those funny new tiny bulbs. It was reduced from £30 to £4!!! 
Well, it was no use to me as I've recently replaced the living room fitting anyway, but at that price I knew I could turn a profit so I snapped it up.  Came home, put it straight onto my local Facebook selling page and within two hours had sold it for a tenner - £6 clear profit! Into the pot, along with a couple more quid from eBay - I made another £70 but most of it has gone into other 'pots'.

Running total:

£302.14

Yay! I passed the £300 mark!

How far will I get this month?

I'ts looking like I'll easily hit the £300 mark this month. £334 would be two months target in one go, which would be great as I'd have a month's 'cushion' for when the progress slows down - which I'm sure it will when my obsession wears off a bit! I've diverted a bit of eBay money into other savings today but there was still some to add to the pot, plus I used about £9 of vouchers in Asda so that 'saved money' went in too.

Running total:

£289.87

Picked up about 23p in the street too - into the 'found money' pot.

.. and yet more eBay!

I know, I said I was going to divert some - but I still have more yet to finish, so tonight another £15.78 has gone into the pot.

Running total: 

£273.03

A couple more eBay items.

I have sold a couple more items on eBay, a Filofax and a Kipling purse. After fees another £15 went into my challenge fund. I have some more eBay items ending this week but I may divert some of the proceeds into other savings - I'm in danger of becoming so focussed on this one goal that I let my other 'pots' stagnate and I need extra in those too for those specific events. My progress for this one is doing so well!

Running total:

£257.25

An eBay sale!

Today I sold a kit bag which I used in my old job via eBay. After eBay fees and Paypal fees and postage, I got £14.33 - into the pot!

Running total: 

£242.25

Sunday's round-up..

Various little additions over the last couple of days - a couple of pounds 'oddses' to move across after some direct debits went out, £3 in small change that my son turfed out of his wallet and said I could have (strange how young people see small money as worthless!) a few pounds that I won on a slot machine (yes, I know, I shouldn't be gambling in the first place!) - all totalling to £16.11.

Running total: 

£227.92

I've picked up a few more pennies for the found money pot too - even going so far as to stop the car today when I spotted a shiny 10p in the road!

Saved a £1..

I had to buy (yet more) printer ink today - if you have an Epson printer do not try to fob it off with compatible ink cartridges, it will have a hissy fit, throw black ink everywhere and you will end up having to give in and purchase the genuine cartridge anyway, thereby costing you more money!
It was priced at £9.50 but I was with my friend who works in that particular store, who kindly purchased it for me using her staff discount card so I saved £1. Into the pot! 

I have listed some more items on eBay as well. Fingers crossed!

Running total:

£211.81

..and some more!

My cheque arrived from NS&I for the closure of my Investment Account. £27.02 into the pot!

I also used £5.85 in coupons and vouchers today in Asda, so will be adding that to the pot. 

Running total:

£210.81

Some progress to report!

Yesterday my mother gave me a small sum of money (£50) which I divided between my various savings  - car repairs, holiday, Christmas, rainy day fund - and I popped a tenner of that into my 2014 challenge fund. I also moved across £2.88 'oddses' from my current account, and this morning I found I had £7.55 left over in my bills account after all payments were made, so in it goes. 

Running total:

£177.94.

I need to save £167 a month to hit my target so I'm very pleased that this month  I've done that already, only two weeks in. Here's hoping I manage to keep up the pace...!

Just an update -

Nothing very exciting to add, but I transferred £4.84 'oddses' from my current account into my 2014 account today, and added a further £5 from 'leftover' car MOT money. I have been saving for this and it came in way under what I had expected. At first I planned to put all the surplus (£145) into my 2014 account but after some thought I decided to keep £100 for an emergency car repair fund and share the remaining £45 out between my other savings pots (Christmas, holidays, rainy day fund). So the 2014 pot gained only £5, but it's still an addition. 

I must start to find ways to make a little extra to save in my challenge fund. I've joined Swagbucks for paid surveys and started to clip coupons as well. My intention is that each time I use a coupon or voucher the moeny I save will go into my 2014 fund. I have a lot of things I should be eBaying, too.

Running total: 

£157.51

PS  - picked up a few more pennies for my 'found money' pot today too.

Every little helps...

I finally got to the bank this morning to pay in all my change from the weekend - I tried to go Saturday lunchtime but got there a few minutes after closing! 

This morning I caught my son about to put a scratchcard into the waste paper basket, when I asked him why he said it was one that they dont' sell any more and so he thought it would be too late to claim his prize (£1!).
SO I said that I would take it to the shop and see if it was still valid, to which he replied I could keep the £1 if it was - so that went into the bank as well! Only a pound.. but as the heading says... :D

Running total:

£147.67

Three posts in one day!

Sold a couple of boxes of chocs today which I was given over Christmas - the expensive kind from Hotel Chocolat. So another £20 in the pot! Also picked up a few more street pennies to go into the Found Money Pot - but I'm not countng those towards the grand total until I open it again at the end of the year.

Running total:

£146.67

A boost!

I have a slight obsession with 'free' money - that's money you find in the street. So many people will walk past a penny, or even throw one down - I'm that crazed woman swooping down on those pennies gleefully! I have a special Terramundi money jar which I keep them in all year and I've just emptied out last year's haul - 

£47.53!

So that will now go into my 2014 Challenge account, (well, I've popped the 53p back in to start me off for this year) and while I was at it I thought I'd count up my change jar as well (I empty everything smaller than £1 out of my purse at the end of each day into my change jar) and that netted me a further £39. So that can go into my fund as well - making another £86 towards my total!

A blog, maybe?

Having spent the first week of 2014 almost continuously reading Frugal blogs, I came across one where the author had challenged herself to save £2013 in 2013. This has inspired me to save £2014 in 2014.

I'm not a natural saver - money runs through my hands like water and I currently have no 'savings' as such. That said, I do operate a 'pots' system so whilst I tell myself I have no savings, I actually have about £500. As its earmarked for various destinations, it doesn't count as savings in my brain - and until now that's been the safest way. Because 'savings' is 'available money'- and available money is there to be frittered....

But I'm now 40 years old and its time to get a grip on my finances. I really want to start to build up some real savings - not earmarked for a particular project, just savings for savings sake. I'm hoping blogging about it might make me stick to my challenge!

So here we go, my blog on how I'm going to save £2014 in 2014. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've changed the name of one of my bank accounts to 2014 account, and have associated a savings goal with that account within my online banking. Over the last week I've been transferring all the little odds and ends of my current account into here - so if my available balance shows at £201.73, I transfer the £1.73 over. I've also added a small Quidco payment directly into there, and a tiny balance that I had on my Paypal account. So my running total currently stands at:

£40.67

I've also just completed a closure form for my NS&I Investment account (useless to me since they changed the way it's operated) so when the cheque arrives for the small balance I had in there of around £26, I'll be adding that to my £2014 fund.