My Week #1

Now I'm sure most of you have already heard about this through Philofaxy, but I was a little late to the party so I'm starting 4 weeks in! Yes, I'm doing Paper Lovestory's 'my week' blog post train!

For those who haven't seen it, reading this blog post will explain it a little better than I can. And onto my first week!

Ok, so right at the top on the Monday header I have my budget aim for the week - this will probably stay pretty static but may change if and when I find some money! This week I aimed for £20 on everything. I did ok until yesterday when I went to go watch the rugby, had a few drinks and ended up going out * embarrassed face*. I'd been working hard all week and just needed to let my hair down! As you can see, that meant that basically nothing I had planned to do on Saturday actually got done... oh well. I had a £10 'emergency' budget fund built in (not written that down because if I do then I'll take advantage of it too much) and so in the end ending the week £12.85 over budget. Not bad, but next week needs to be better! NSD stands for 'no spend day' and means that I didn't buy anything on that day. I am aiming for a lot of these!

I've written in my lectures and commitments at the start of the week so I know where I *must* be at what time. Everything else after that is what I need to do or am attending but don't have to go to (like societies).

Down the side I have my post it notes, these were on the pages but I took them off for easy viewing. The yellow one details items I've bought online and am waiting to arrive, the stripey blue and white one is blog posts I need to write and photograph and the white one is a list of my goals for the coming month. I may have slightly failed on the last one already but I was not completely sober so I guess a little pasta sauce with meat in isn't a massive crime!

I hate how untidy and messy this week is. Next week I'm going to trial new pens and writing in one colour per day/per 'thought' and see if that's neater. I dislike the messy vibe it has going on!

So, how has your week been? Is your planner as messy as mine? Or are you as neat as possible? As many colours as possible or monochrome? Also, what do you think of the new blog layout and design? Let me know in the comments!

Financial organisation, stat!

As I'm heading back to uni in 6 days, it's really time to get a hang of my finances! For the past two years I've pretty much just spent what I wanted and crossed my fingers that I would still be able to buy food the next day! However, when I graduate I want to move in with my boyfriend so it's time to get serious and learn to budget whilst I have the relative luxury of 'free' money.

In order to be a bit more sensible, I need a decent way of tracking my money, and creating a budget. I also need to know the difference between needing something and just wanting it, and resisting the urge to splash out on something pretty but not needed! It can be really expensive in my uni town as there's only one supermarket near the accommodation (so prices are high) and there's not a massive amount of variety so you can't always shop around for the best deal. It often requires some crafty shopping! So the first thing I need to do is figure out what staples I buy each week, and where is cheapest to buy them. I can do half of this before I even leave for university in Powerpoint. I'd like to make my own filofax insert for it eventually so I can keep it with me, but that is a task for a rainy Welsh night!

Secondly, I need to figure out how much a month I have to spend and what I can spend it on. I'd like to try and save a little bit of my loan this year so that when I do graduate, I have a tiny little cushion (I don't anticipate it will be much!) to fall back on when I move home again. I don't think I'll be able to find a job at uni other than the one I currently have - which is only for the first semester and only pays £9 a week. Not much, but it's money in my pocket! I'm also hoping to open an Etsy shop and sell a few Filo inserts on there - watch this space - for some extra cash. There is of course, all the little websites I use (see this post about them on my other blog) occasionally but they take quite a lot of time and effort.

Thirdly, I need to stick to only buying what I've decided to buy, and not being taken in by pretty things on websites or sales or the bargain section (unless it's a really good deal :D)!

I'd really like to try some no spend challenges, such as 'have 10 no spend days in one month' or even the seriously hard, 'go spend free for a week'. I may track these on here! I'll let you know how it goes.