It's a few days into 2021, but HAPPY NEW YEAR, to you all! At the start of 2020 I made the decision to start doing cash envelopes and budgeting, to try and rein in my spending and try and save up a good emergency fund, as well as savings for Florida, car maintenance, medication, and other categories.
Well....
Last year was a year from hell for a lot of us, and I had to shield for 3 months on NHS recommendation due to my asthma, so I was locked up indoors from the end of March, to the middle of June. I could only buy necessities online as I couldn't go out. So food shopping , toiletries, 'fun' money all had to be put into a new bank account, and a new budgeting system emerged for me. I still have some things in cash only, but 80% of my budget is now all digital and done via my online banking app!
I also dipped into my savings a lot during that 3 months, and then I reined it in a little - only to want a Cricut Joy and all it's accessories, which meant the savings dipped again. BUT, I still saved just shy of £500 from my original goal, so not all was lost. But this year, 2021, I wanted to try something different and try and go nutso with my savings.
So this year, I'm even budgeting my left over number after my main budget is done. Whatever is left is going to be allocated via some fun savings challenges, and other forms of income now have a designed category to fill when I receive them. If you want to check out my budgeting through the year, I have a video once a month on
my YouTube channel, so you can join me and see how my savings is going!
So without further ado, here are my 2021 Savings Challenges!
Depop, Blogging, OnePoll
I sell unwanted items on
my Depop shop, and last year I managed to sell just over 35 items, but I spent all that income. So this year, any money made from this shop of mine, will be added into my savings. If I make £10.49 from a sale, the £10 goes into my holiday fund, and the 0.49p goes into the extra savings account!
Slightly like above, the same thing is going to happen with my blog and OnePoll income. I usually get round numbers like £10, £15, £25 from both of these streams of extra income, so all of that will be going into my general savings. Sometimes, it can be £6.26, and just like above, any pennies from the amounts will get put into the extra account.
Sunday Savings - Dice Roll
Each Sunday, I will be getting my sister to roll and dice and pick out a category out of a bag, ranging from some of my cash envelopes, savings, or a category of her choice, and the dice roll will be doubled and added into whatever category is selected. If she rolls a 4, that becomes £8 for whatever of the below categories she pulls out!
- Holiday
- General
- Gifts
- Dad's Christmas Present
- Miscellaneous
- Dinner Out
- Outings
- Car (insurance, tax, etc)
- Christmas
- Fun
- Clothing
- Sister's Florida Fund
There is even a slip in the bag that is listed as her choice, so she can either pull another category, or just choose one. Last week, she rolled a 6, it was her choice, and she chose holiday. So £12 was put into my Florida holiday fund.
I will be allocating £48 a month for this, as I get paid every 4 weeks, so 4x6 is 24, and the dice roll is doubled, so I'll need £48 to cover it if a 6 is rolled each week! Any money left over from the £48 is left as a buffer and then will be used for Save-opoly!
Save-opoly
Now this a relatively new concept to me, but it looked hella fun, so I found a few ideas online, but none quite worked for me. So I found an image on Google, and used photoshop to edit it to how I would like it. It's basically a Monopoly board, that you tweak to fit your savings, and you can use it as often as you want. I'll be using this on the Thursday before each payday, to save away any leftover money from the dice roll, and anything left over in my buffer and fun amount that was not spent or allocated elsewhere.
If I have £23 left over at the end of the month, I'll keep rolling until I cannot add another spaces amount to any savings. This amount will be sent into either my general savings, holiday, or gifts, depending on which one I want to fill quicker. Say from that £23 I have 2.50 left that I cannot roll with on the board, that will get put into the extra savings account.
£5 Notes | £2 Coins | 20p & 10p Coins | 2p & 1p Coins
This is a pretty straight forward set of challenges here. Anytime I come across a £5 note, or have £5 left from my food or work food envelopes, that will be put in a little money safe that I cannot touch. Hopefully this will add up to a nice sum over the next 12 months.
Same thing for the coins idea. Anytime a £2 coin is given to me, that goes straight into a money can. These are quite rare to come across lately, but I can hope to find a few now and again.
With the 20p and 10p coins, I'll be sorting these out each Sunday evening. If I have 5 20p coins, and 4 10p coins, the 20ps get put into my money jar that week. And if the amounts are changed around , the 10p coins will get put away. This way I still have some change on me if I need it, but little amounts will get saved. 2p and 1p coins will be put into a piggy bank on my desk each time they appear in my purse so I can save those up too.
Once the jar with the 20p and 10p, and the 2p and 1p coins are filled, they will be emptied out, and paid into my bank account for the extra savings!
The extra savings account is new this year, and is going to be a very small pot, and I doubt will make more than £100 this year from the ways I'll use it above - but any little savings helps! At the end of the year, that extra savings account will be transferred into a category of my choice to help kick of 2022!
I have hope for this year's savings, and I am going to have to really try and be wise with my spending each month - so will see what happens! But, by making wise decisions like reading content online at sites like
Mikhail Solodovnikov instead of buying book after book, I’ll be able to save money.
Are you doing anything with your savings this year, or like any of the above ideas? Let me know! Hope you have a great day and keep safe :)
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