New year, new finance plan

Today I have reviewed and updated my savings plans for the year. I like to think I am very organised but of course there's room for improvement.

At this point in time, this is what my current finance plans are:

- Home emergency pot.Following the recent computer breakdown of a major bank in the UK I decided it would be a good idea to have some emergency cash should the computers develop a conscience and delete our banking history.

 I am not talking about large amounts. 99.99% of my money is safely tucked away in the bank. This is just in the unlikely event there's sort of temporary system fault or something, so I can buy groceries and so on.

I plan to have about £100.00 in £5.00 notes and probably £50.00 in £10.00. Maybe less. I'm not comfortable with large amounts of cash in the home. I also need to figure out a decent hiding place for said cash pot.

Currently I have £50.00/100.00 for the £5.00 notes. Haven't started the £10.00 yet. I am just adding fivers every so often, so I don't miss it.

-Emergency pot. I'm talking about the real thing this time. The general consensus is that you should have between 3 to 6 months' worth of wages or expenses saved up in case of major emergencies. Unemployment is an emergency. Or the roof falling down. Apart from that, the money in that savings account does not exist.

I am aiming to have £5000.00 eventually. I've been saving towards this goal for years and I currently have £2000.00 saved up. Every month I save something, even if it's just a tenner (and it's actually been a tenner for months now).

- Everyday expenses. This is for car tax, heating, MOT, holidays, Christmas, and so on. I have a spreadsheet where I neatly allocate a set amount to each category every month, according to what's the priority that month. Typically I put away a minimum of £100.00 into this account. Occasionally, my fiance will help out when he can too. I earn the most by the way, so it's cool ;) I then use this money to pay for our expected (and sometimes unexpected if something breaks!) expenses.

- Honeymoon savings. I save a small amount each month towards our honeymoon. Nothing major, just what I can. I am a big believer of squirreling away small amounts and watch the pot slowly grow. I usually put away only £10.00 a month (occasionally more, but never more than £40.00) and a year and a half on I have £510.00 saved up. Whilst in the end I won't have enough to pay for the whole thing, it will certainly help. A lot.

We also have a proper wedding fund, but we both add a set amount to it, I don't any extra to it so it isn't that interesting.

So this is it.

In summary, these are my 2013 savings targets:
1) Home pot: £100.00 in fivers, £50.00 in tenners;
2) Emergency pot: £5000.00. (Unlikely I'll achieve this by the end of the year);
3) Honeymoon: £1000.00 by August 2013. 

Thanks for reading! Do you too have a savings plan?

Winter wonderland

Winter has well and truly arrived here in Northern Ireland. This means only one thing: gardens covered in ice, slippery pavements, and lots of coffee to warm up the body and perk up the mind.

All right, that was three things. I used poetic licence.

If I’m honest, I am not a fan of winter. I used to love it as a child, love it all. The snow, the cosy winter clothes, the ice skating, hot water bottles, and hot chocolate. Lots of it. You can get the most beautiful hot chocolate in Italy, trust me.

Winter was a chance for me to spend more time with dad. We would often go skiing, just the two of us, the best of Enya lyrics keeping us company on the two and a half hour journey to the mountains.

As an adult, winter has lost most of its allure. Call me cynical, but nowadays this time of year screams heating bills, icy roads, electricity bills, the stress Christmas shopping, crowds, bad Santa movies on TV, no sunlight.

I wish I could recapture some of that positive childhood feeling, but it probably comes with the territory of being a responsible member of society.

Life is too short though, so this year I am making a conscious effort of not letting all the doom and gloom get me down. We’ll see how that goes (I can’t help thinking, roll on summer-time though!)

What are your thoughts on winter? Do you love this season or hate it?

Welcome to my blog

I write about anything and everything. I know this goes against proper blog etiquette, but hey, this my little piece of cyber-space so… why not? But as the blog grows I will have dedicated pages to my various topics. Or (who knows) I might find that writing about a particular topic is more enjoyable than others and that’ll all I will talk about!

Either way, thanks for reading. If you like what you read leave me a comment and if you don’t like it feel free to let me know (only constructive posts please)! And finally if you too have a blog I will be happy to check it out!