Daily Spends – A Diary of Spending Habits

Nasty one yesterday. . . Car share friend got a touch of Christmasitis and had to go home a lunch, leaving me to foot a grim £10.20 train fare on the way home. Wouldn’t mind but I had to stand up most of the way. The public transport in England leaves a lot to be desired!

DailySpends – Monday 22nd December

Jaffa Cakes – £0.60 (should have been £0.55 but the machine stole 5p)
Train fare – £10.20
Total = £10.60

Work day yesterday. . . Nothing too exciting to report on the spending front, although I am still pondering that recent pizza price index increase . . . 43p it’s gone up! Fascinating! Just wait ’till Robert Peston get’s onto that one – DailySpends will be all over the news

DailySpends Wed 17.12.08:
Travel – £2.50
Breakfast – £1.50 (sausage butty if ya must know)
Lunch – £1.06 (diet coke and snickers)
Total: £5.06

Love Mondays . . . absolutely love ‘em!

Breakfast – £0.00 (no time – I know that’s bad)
Lunch – £3.06 (ham & mozarella pannini, coke, kit kat)
Total = £3.06

Woke up this morning on the back of a dream about winning the Olympic Gold in the mens 4×100m. Brilliant dream! I could feek myself running and everything.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive a letter from my mortgage company this morning telling me they’d reduced my interest rate by 0.5% in line with the recent BoE base rate reduction.

Very nice Saves me about £40.00 a month – Thank you very much GMAC!

Dear mamma joe! I’ve been busy lately . . . so busy . . . absolutely crazy busy. Work is mad as hatter and family life is busy to say the least.

But enough of the rubbish excuses! Daily Spends is now back on track (for today anyway). Wann know what I spend yesterday? Well do ya?

Here you go:

coffee – £0.20
cake – £1.00
fish ‘n’ chips – £8.45
Total Spends = £9.65

PS – i’m now getting a lift to work which is saving me over £200 per month! Whicked eh?

A quick guide to 5 sites that can help you to curb/monitor/think about your spending habits:

I’ve been keeping this blog for a while now and whilst (admittedly) I don’t list every single spend I make, it certainly helps me to keep track of my spending habits and identify where I can start to make savings in my spending patters (notably: midweek treats, travel & those little ad-hoc expenses that all add up!).

Looking back at my online stats I can see that the site is now getting lots of visits from people looking for ‘daily spending’ type queries. This signifies that people are out there actively searching for ways to reduce their spending or for online support and advice around the subject.

With that in mind, I thought I’d compile a quick run-down of 5 sites that can help people in their quest:

1 – Personal Finance Forums
There are a number of extremely active personal finance forums where users commune to discuss all variety of issues including daily spending & debt reduction. debt consolidation care forum is a great example of a community supporting each other in their attempt to reduce debts – with a forum & open blogging platform, this community of over 80,000 memebers provides a vital resource for everyday people to discuss money worries.

2 – Money Saving Sites
There are so many obvious ways to save money . . . it’s just sometimes it’s not as obvious as it should be. MoneySavingExpert.com is a great site for spotting the latest deals and money saving ideas.

3 – Government Help
The Financial Services Authority offer practical financial advice on their sites MoneyMadeClear.fsa.gov.uk.

4 – Frugal Bloggers
A multitude of ‘Frugal’ bloggers base their whole blog around the art of saving money in any give opportunity – catch them all at festivaloffrugality.com.

5 – DailySpendingNetwork
Our very own DailySpendingNetwork aggregates all the latest posts from our networked bloggers. You’re always invited to come and join us!

Hopefully you’ll find those resources useful in your quest to reduce your daily spending!!!

Hey guys. I just added a quick profile over at the Daily Spending Network so you can learn a little more about me