SAVINGS!

I have never been very good with money. I've always favoured buying lots of smaller things the day I get my pay packet than one big thing that I will have to save for, so other than a wardrobe full to the brim I don't have anything really to show for my past year. 

I'd like this bad habit to end, so I have a few different pots that I would like my money to go into over the next year and a bit. 

1. A Car fund - Now that I have passed both driving tests I would like to be able to put into practice what I learnt, before I forget.(this would also includes maintenance money for insurance and MOTs and such
2. A Traveling fund - I would really, really like to do some kind of a tour of the USA. I'd love to see New York, California and Idaho as main stops but generally have the idea that I will see all of it. (ambitious much?) 
3. A rainy day fund - You never know when you are going to need some money and as it is me, I'm bound to need some!

I feel like maybe the car fund may take priority over the next few months as that is the thing that would happen the quickest. The traveling I am hoping to take my time with so will need less ties to where I am at the moment - and I also feel like I'll need a bit more self-confidence if I going to be travelling on my own!

I feel like with writing this I will be able to stick to it (I'm quite a flakey person when it comes to my own plans) so I'll see how well that turns out.

Natasha

WHAT I SPEND MY MONEY ON

One of the things that I want to get better at is budgeting. I don't get enough money each month for it to go towards anything 'grown-up', even if I had anything 'grown-up' to pay for, so I end up blowing it all by the end of payday! I have a phone contract and I pay my mum pittance for rent, after that I have just over £400 to spend on whatever. Looking back over the months that I have had my current job I've tried to think of what I have bought, which hasn't gone successfully.


From July onwards have spend £20 each week on a driving lesson, Starting from the middle of September I will be paying monthly for contact lenses and I'll sometimes buy food for work or home. That means I have spent a ridiculous amount of money on unmemorable things and in realising this I have decided to make a conscious change.

Conscious change:  I will not spend money on anything unless deemed necessary.

Well what is necessary, Natasha? Surely that make up product that has just come out that you want to try is necessary?...

As much as I would like to keep ahead of the game with make-up and such things that is not, in my book, deemed necessary. My kind of necessary varieties from 'urgently important' (e.g. deodorant) to 'part-of-my-daily-routine products' (e.g. Tea Tree water).

If the worst comes to the worst and I cannot decide then my mum will be consulted.

This is just one of my ways I hope to stop spending. Something else I am trying is learning new things to override the memorisation of my card number!!!

Have you ever had this problem before? What have you done to solve it?

Natasha