Noor77's personal budgeting thread

Re: Clothes and Holidays

Thanks for the link Sherman : ) I'll have to start changing my ways. Gift buying is a silent money-eater but at least this isn't Spain - where you have to buy a gift for both a persons birthday and their saints (name) day.

My problem is that I am not a creative budgeter - instead of finding interesting ways of doing something cheaply I will just cut that thing out entirely. That is probably why all my budgeting endeavours to date have failed ...
 
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Its nice to see someone cheweng through the options BEFORE they get into trouble. Well done Noor77.

It Proves that AAM is not primarily for the sad or the bad cases but for the ordinary Josephine trying to get a good handle on the useful life skill of money management .

Well done and enjoy.
 
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oOOOOOOOOOOOOH...

I feel all noble and sensible now!!!

P.s. the €100 budget isn't going too well ....I've spent €80 since last Thursday : ((

...Then again the €100 was supposed to go from a Thursday to a Thursday so I'm not really doing that badly at all, Only bought two magazines in that time also, which is an improvement (for me at least).

I'm trying to work on the whole "budgeting for life goals" thing that Clubman brought up. It's proving quite difficult though as generally I don't like to think too far ahead. I have started to operate my own version of the "brown envelope" savings scheme, as mentioned by Janet. I have three small boxes- one for permanent (long term) savings, one for clothes and one for holidays. It's better than nothing ; )
 
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Do you know what you've spent that €80 on? That's the important thing really.
 
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Food, 2 magazines, a couple of papers, flu remedy, one bottle of vitamins, no socialising!
 
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Norr77,fair play to you,I think you're doing very well.It's admirable that you have a house at 27.I am 27 and I am trying to save towards one now.

I am also trying to budget.I've worked out a budget for the year and have decided to allow myself €120 per week(food,petrol,socialising,misc),we'll see how that goes.Trying to save.I find when going out that spending on drink is the biggest downfall when trying to save!

This month I've finished with my loans.Never thought I'd see the day!!My spending was ridiculous in the last few years so I managed to clear €9000 in 14 months...still managed a holiday though.It's worth it. I am now more cautious with spending and now I can finally save. I still have topped up my SSIA to the max since day 1.The returns will be worth it in the end.
 
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€9,000 in 14 months is very impressive Missie - you either have a fantastic salary or you were just able to live really frugally during the time you were paying the money back!

If you don't mind me asking - what had you getting into that kind of debt in the first place? Was it clothes / lifestyle???

It's great that you are now in a position to start saving for a property - it'll happen sooner than you think. And when it does happen, you'll wish you never did it ; )

Noor
 
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Hi Noor,My salary is 30K.Yeah I really watched the pennies but still went out and did the usual hobbies as well.I just didn't buy much clothes/mags/didn't eat out as much/made my own lunch most days etc.I didn't drink as much either.Didn't go to Brown Thomas and went to Pennies and Awear instead!!

I was €9,000 in debt last xmas03.It was getting ridiculous,some of it was a car loan €1000 and the rest was lifestyle debts.Going out too much,spending way too much on drinking,buying designer jeans etc,miss sixty,tommy etc,eating out all of the time as well.I just was not thinking about what I spent.I was living beyond my means so I made a new years resolution to pay off all debts.

At last it's a great feeling to know that my money is my own and not the banks!I can save at last!!
So a mortgage will be the next debt...
 
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I have been the same. I finished paying for a loan in under a year which was over 4000. Since last week I am now debtless. I want to start saving for future and short term
Future: House, Wedding, Kids etc
Short: Car, Holidays, Holidays & more holidays.

I have budgeted around 120 also a week for food, socialising. Although drink is very expensive, however i do only drink a bacardi & diet coke which would cost around 6.50 but if i buy 2 bacardi & 1 diet coke it would cost 10.00 just use half of the coke.
I would usually drink around 3 or 4 of those, so on a night out I would usually cost 20.00. But for some reason we spend more dont know why though. plus he is costing me a fortune as he plays in a band and sometimes we could be out 2 times a week.
 
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Hi again Missie

Is that €30k net? If it is you are very lucky : ))
As I have said earlier, the things that really throw me when doing budgets is having to buy birthday presents etc... It seems to never end but I would hate to appear in any way stingy. I suppose I am a bit too generous sometimes but I wouldn't really like to compromise that.

Have you set up any savings accounts in the bank or how do you save?
 
No, it's €30K gross so averages over €2k a month which is not much really...

As for birthday presents,I give €60 worth to 4 close friends and then small meaningful presents to other friends but it really is the thought that counts!!If you plan a budget for the year you can factor in these birthday gifts and deduct these from your average monthly savings.

Also I will try and stick to €120 per week and anything I have left from that €120 will go into a money box.Somehow I doubt that will happen!!
 
Your €120 a week is probably much more realistic than my €100. How have you broken down the €120 over food / transport / going out etc...???
 
Hi Noor-forgot to mention the savings bit..
Well for the moment on my online banking I will just take out an x amount of money at the beginning of the month and put it into my savings account.
Used to have a credit union account so might re open one and start saving.Apart from the SSIA,savings is an alien word to me so it's weird now that I can actually save!!
 
This is how I'll break down the €120.

€30 Petrol
€30 Food
€40 Social
€20 Misc


We'll see how that goes!!!The social bit will be a tough one!!
 
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Is that €30k net? If it is you are very lucky : ))

Missie may well be lucky but going on income alone you are not too badly off yourself on the equivalent of c. €38K gross as I pointed out !
 
There is 2 of us and
Our weekly budget is as follows:

Both Income: 535/week joint account

Rent: 130
ESB: 8
Chorus TV: 15
Eircom: 15
Mr. Binman 7 (1 bag per week)
His Amp: 13
Food: 50
Entertainment: 50
Smartsave: 180 (house,wedding, 3 or 4 year plan)
Credit Union: 50 (holidays, weekend irish & european breaks, birthdays, emergencies etc)
Anything left over goes into a money box.
50's, 20's, 10's have all seperate boxes, then all 5s, 2s and 1s go in the one box. We need extra cash last week and we were able to exchange the 50's and had 50 euro saved, this was over 1 month of putting 50's in there.

Do you know that buy just popping 2 euro's into a very large box (i use the largest water bottle you can buy - once emptied) that 2 euros a day will mount up to 15,000 in under 20 years. Its an interesting fact.
 
re: food budget

Does anyone else find it hard to stick to the food budget? Went shopping at the weekend, did a split between Dunnes and Aldi, + bought meat in butchers. For 2 of us we spent almost 70 euro and that still did not include everything. Probably will spend another 10 - 15 during the week. I didn't buy any ready meals out of that, trying to cook a bit more myself as its my new hobby!
 
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Hey Norr,

What magazines & papers do you get. What interests have you.

I used to always buy magazines and himself used to always buy papers and also wrestling magazines and manga magazines etc.

But i found since having broadband installed I found some very useful sites that i go and browse on a regular basis and because of that it saves me over €30

For news on soaps/entertainment/movies/reality tv etc the website i love to go to is www.digitalspy.co.uk here they also have a very large detailed message board, plus a whole section on Big Brother if your in to that. But a great site for entertainment etc.

For more serious news or general news ie Michael Jackson, Iraq, Flu Bug, Football, Music, And other sorts of entertainment i find www.newsnow.co.uk very useful. There website is updated every 5 minutes. You can access the menu's on the left, but if using the search function you can only enter 1 word. But the menu list will fulfill all aspects of media/entertainment,news, and lots lots more.

Hope this helps.

Also i find www.rollercoaster.ie & www.boards.ie very useful.
 
Re: re: food budget

did a split between Dunnes and Aldi, + bought meat in butchers

For what it's worth I find dedicated butchers' shops much better value than supermarkets for meat.
 
Re: re: food budget

I was the same also bluebean,

But for 2 people a week we allocated 50 only.
This is the way we usually do it now and it works out great.
Fish Shop: 2 salmon, 2 haddock, 2 Mackerel = €12.00
Butchers: 2 CK Fillets, 2 x 1/2lb lean mince, 2 pork chops all this x 2 again (2nd batch in bags for freezing) = 15.00

so far our food cost us € 27.00 leaving us €23

Tescos
We use baby potatoes which cost 99c in bags we get 3 bags
We then usually buy 2 large bags of mixed frozen veg. Some fruit & youghurts (muller light are the best), milk, bread,
I love soup and could pick up 2 or 3 boxes or packets every week.

However come to think of it we still need to add in things like washing powder, fabric softener, toilet roll, washing-up liquid, shampoo/conditioner, bathroom/kitchen cleaning products, shakeNvac, air freshener, these all might look like small things, but added up they cost a fortune esp washing powder etc.

any suggestions on these that we seem to forget to add in our food/grocery budget
 
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