September Update

Managed to get a few extra hours at work, which equates to a few extra pounds in the bank! It's only temporary, it will help me reach my goal a bit quicker. Very happy!

Christian Grey - my new role model!

I'll admit I wasn't an initial fan of the Fifty Shades series. I read the blurb and heard everyone's opinions and had no interest in the novels to begin with. I reluctantly gave in once I grew tired of feeling like the odd one out and a colleague loaned me the first book to read on holiday. I was surprised to find that the novel did have some plus points after all.
I won't waste blog space with a critique of the writing, storyline, dialogue or characters. I think they have been picked apart enough by other people (and I haven't written a proper book review since the failure in junior school that was 'Fascist Undertones In Peter Rabbit'). Besides, none of that interested me. What did catch my attention was Christian Grey's enormous... bank balance! Yep, the guy is a self-made billionaire (apparently) and has access to the sort of wealth that only the Warren Buffetts and Bill Gates of this world get to experience first hand. He is also barely a year older than me.

As I continued to read through Fifty Shades, I began to care less and less about the relationship (the main plot) and focus more on the kind of lifestyle that Grey seems to be living. The expensive toys obviously stand out (helicopters, flash cars, gliders), but they are just pretty accessories. I also had a look at the Escala penthouse (you can see the real thing here if you're feeling nosy) and can't say I'm impressed. But take all that away and you're left with the one thing that his extreme wealth does offer - control.

I guess the whole series is about control in some form or another (being that it's an S&M romance). But taking the focus off the sex and nice gadgets, Christian Grey has almost complete control over his environment. He owns his company, so sets his own hours, working location, decides which people surround him on a daily basis. He has the freedom to walk away from his job entirely if he wants to. He has control over people's lives (most notably his submissives). He even attempts to control global issues - his obsession with wiping out poverty-induced hunger.

I like this. I wouldn't mind a bit more control myself. Not having to orientate my life around paying the bills would be a good start! So I'm using Fifty Shades as a motivational tool for the time being. If I feel like giving up then I just have to re-read a couple of chapters to remind myself how much easier life could be with a bit of money.

Now I just need to work out how the hell Christian Grey got that rich in the first place!?

Have Job, Will Save

I'm back in the game! I should start off by giving everyone an update on my situation. After sending out well over 300 CVs and chasing agencies and employers for months on end, I decided to take a gamble and move to a less-crowded area of the UK in order to find work. It was getting ridiculous putting in so much time and effort for minimal results (3 interviews in the space of a year) and there is a well-known saying that if you want a different result then you shouldn't repeat the same process. So I upped sticks and left my home town, my family and my friends for a completely new location in the middle of nowhere.
It was scary and lonely at first, but I had the added support of my boyfriend (who was in a similar boat). I should point out that one of his major personality traits is a ridiculous level of enthusiasm that is hard to resist, and we managed to convince ourselves over the course of one weekend that moving was the best decision. We had no accessible savings, nowhere to stay (we slept on a sofa for the first month) and didn't know if we would find work. But it wasn't much different to our situation back home. It just had more potential and that was enough!

My boyfriend managed to bag a job immediately (cheeky git that he is) and began work on the Monday. I applied for 3 jobs the first morning we arrived and got a call the next day requesting an interview. The following Tuesday I had a permanent job!

The first 2 months salary went towards sofa rent (we paid the owners part living costs), hiring a large van to move our belongings from one side of the country to the other and then 2 months rent for our new flat. After that was set up fees (a cheap bed and other furniture, work clothes due to me putting on weight whilst unemployed and then losing it again, and other random initial costs). We moved in over Christmas and by the end of March I was back to saving again.

So... current savings total is £2006 (£2k of this has recently moved to a 2 year bond, so I can free up my £5640 ISA allowance for this year). I should note that my boyfriend and I keep our finances separate and currently have no plans to combine them. Rent is split equally and we have split bills so that we pay roughly the same each month towards the flat. We have very different diets (mine is close to T-Total vegan whereas he loves JD and steak), travel needs (he has a car and drives for a living, I have a 3 hour commute by bus/foot), and attitudes to spending/saving remaining income (he mostly spends, I mostly save) so these are paid for individually as this works for us both and neither feels we have to compromise. I will therefore not be including his savings here.

Most larger bills for the rest of this year are already budgeted for, so I am hoping that I will be able to dedicate a higher percentage of my salary to savings for the next few months. I plan to include a breakdown of typical monthly expenditure in the next entry so everyone (myself included) can see where my money is going and where I could make further cutbacks.

Monthly Budget

In my last post I mentioned I would be adding a breakdown of all my income and expenses for an average month. I was going to wait a couple of days, but I figured I should just get to work while I'm in the zone! So, here goes...

INCOME

£955 (Salary after tax and pension contributions)

EXPENSES
 
£250 (Shared rent)
£100 (Income tax)
£130 (Bus fare commuting to office - This is the one thing I would change about my job, as I realise it eats into a large part of my salary)
£50 (Water, gas, electric, TV, internet, phone)
£10 (Clothes/Accessories/Toilettries - I can never buy highstreet clothes to fit properly and generally either raid charity shops and adjust the items or just make my own from scratch. Slow or non-perishable toilettries I buy in bulk at the start of the year as this gives me a huge discount)
£10 (Mobile PAYG)
£20 (Work expenses such as clothes, makeup, work socials, cakes on birthdays, etc - basically anything that I wouldn't otherwise spend money on)
£10 (University fees - 90% of my degree is paid for through grants due to my low salary, so I only pay a top-up amount. I dropped out of a regular 'brick' uni in London back in 2004 due to the massive costs. I couldn't work enough hours around my classes to cover the bills and back then you couldn't get a student loan to cover everything as they assumed your parents gave you money. So this time around I am distance studying with optional lectures so I can hold down a 9-5 job simultaneously)
£40 (Christmas and birthday presents, socialising and other random expenses - the majority of this goes on presents)

£955 - £620 = £335 left for savings

So that's an idea of where my money goes each month. There are obvious areas where I could cut back on expense, such as commuting costs to and from the office. If I didn't enjoy my job or work with such a great team, then it would be an easy decision to just look for somewhere closer. But I never wake up in the morning dreading my job, which is a big deal to me when most of the people I know have to drag themselves out of bed! Plus the organisation is very flexible about working hours (something I'm not used to) and that makes it easier to fit in any exams or projects I have to complete for uni. So for the time being, I'm content to deal with the longer days and just use the travel time to sleep or study.

I don't think I can cut back much more on rent without sacrificing security/privacy. I don't live in an expensive area (I could move closer to the city where I work to save on travelling, but rent would go up to rebalance that) and our flat is just big enough for the two of us not to feel claustraphobic.

We are getting rid of Sky when our contract runs out in October. We are both studying the harder parts of our degree now, so won't have much free time to sit and rot in front of the box in the evenings/weekends. We pick up enough channels on freeview to keep us entertained and have iPlayer, Youtube, etc to catch up online (not to mention the numerous DVDs, games and books in the flat that could be picked up and dusted off).

In a couple of years I will have graduated, so the monthly £10 (£120 a year) on university fees will go towards savings. Until then, I can't really decrease this.

The other major increase to my savings would be to maximise my income. I currently only work 4 longer days per week rather than 5 to save on bus fares, but I have requested more hours at work to bump this up enough to justify the extra day. I could then get a monthly or yearly ticket and save more money than the cost of commuting for an extra day. So I will wait to hear back on this. Until then, I will look into making additional income through other means. If anyone can suggest any (legal) methods then I would love to hear them!