Sensible saving head on.

Dear reader,

Approaching Christmas and I know I haven’t been great this year with saving for the festive period.
There always seems to be something to pay out for. I haven’t gone overboard this year, not that we do but I’ve definitely bought less presents than I usually would.
We go to my parents so don’t have to stock up on food as my lovely mum does all that and they treat us extremely well.  I enjoy the family time and seeing friends more than anything. I’m sure we all do.

I don’t really enjoy traipsing round the shops, getting stuck in the car park and traffic jams is not my idea of fun, so have done it online and am just waiting on deliveries to arrive.

The past few years I have been plagued with a bit of a lemon car. It was 11 years old when I bought it and I must have spent well over what I paid on repairing it. It was a case of, “Well, we’ve spent this much, so if nothing else goes wrong, it’s worth it.” We also didn’t have enough money to buy a replacement so I carried on until it was 15. Not wanting to go into debt, I cashed in my savings plans that I had through work and had been planned for retirement and bought a newer car. Public transport to work is neither cost effective nor feasible I’m afriad.
That’s life.

I have now set up some more bank accounts to put money aside. This year is gifts, Christmas and Birthdays which I will give £50 a month and just a general savings of £50 a month. We also have a car account for insurance, breakdown cover, mot and servicing which we feed £200 a month. The house insurance and boiler service comes from the two months we don’t pay council tax.

What do you save for and how do you do it? Accounts, glass jar, Premium bonds?

I’m really interested as I know there are some ingenious ways to save out there, I just need to know them.......