Tuesday, 21 February 2012

Organising - Savings Idea

This is a little bit random but relevant for today as I've just been to work.

I usually work from home - 4 days a week - and have one day in the office.

When I'm working from home I don't take long lunches and don't tend to go out during the days as my workdays are really busy. We get our shopping delivered once a week so I have all my supplies and catering sorted for the days I'm at home.

On the days when I'm in the office I treat myself to a nice lunch. We have a reasonably decent staff restaurant and as well as having a hot food section they also have a pretty snazzy salad bar.

I have £20 to cover office days but I don't ever spend anything near that amount.

What I was finding was that I'd break the £20 note at work and then at the weekend when we were out and about, having that cash in my purse was becoming too much of a temptation to just waste it on stuff that I didn't really need.

I figured if I didn't have the cash then my purchasing decisions at the weekends would be more considered as I wouldn't use my card for a few £ spend so would probably decide I didn't really need the item after all.

The decision then was, do I get less money out of bank for office days, or do I forego the nice lunch on those days? Selfishly I didn't want to give up my lunch as it is a nice treat for me. I could get less money out  (probably could easily half it and still have change over) but I came up with an alternative.

I decided I would stick with the £20 and at the end of an office day I would empty my purse and put the change away into a piggy bank for savings.

We already have a savings plan in place so this was to be in addition to what we'd normally save during the month. This is just for short-term bonus savings where I can accumulate it for a few months and then get something nice for the house or myself - I sometimes have a hard time spending money to treat myself, so I'm going to use this savings plan to try and give myself a little kindness every so often.

I've been doing this since the beginning of the new year and already I've amassed quite a stash...


On a similar vein, I also saw a suggestion to save every £5 that comes into your possession. I've pinned that idea for now to keep on the back-burner and see how my £20 challenge goes first. I get bored easily to so might not stick with it! - although I'm hoping the incentive of treats will keep me interested!!

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