manage my finances

Nice surprise at work, received a bonus. I’ll look at options tomorrow, for where I should put that money. I could either…
*Invest it
*Put it in the travel fund
*Use it for singing lessons
I’m thinking I’ll go with the investing option, as I’m going fine and have enough to do the other things as it is. But the other options look good too. Flights are well priced at the moment. Will have a sleep on it zz :)

But I guess I should keep it as I’m so terrible at it. I have two cheques I need to bank in addition to all the other money stuff I’ve been ignoring.

I just discovered my bank I have my major savings with has been steadily decreasing their interest rates for the last 6 months. Their marketing campaigns advertising their high interest rates were the reason I joined them.
Now I want out.
I’m going to look into term deposits tomorrow and try to explore ways I can make this money work for me.

As it’s the second half of the calendar year, and beginning of the new financial year, I felt like checking on my progress. (this will be a long entry, so maybe grab a drink first if you do plan to read it;)

Taking Stock
I’ve just checked the balances of all my accounts, and if I also include the money in my daily account, I’m hovering at the amount that I had as my mid year financial target. Once my next pay is allocated I will be sitting comfortably above that amount, so things are going well.

Budgeting
When my pay comes in, and I’ve calculated my bills and savings, I work out a daily budget. Admittedly I have sometimes completely ignored the budget until 2 weeks into the month, then I have to be super strict to get back on track. But I feel very much “on top” of my savings and budget. I think I’ve struck the right balance in how much I should save and how much I can spend.

Recent Progress
-Sorting out one of my accounts that had been locked up (due to the bank’s error). I had put this off for years! It took a couple of visits, but not only is the account now starting to earn interest, the bank actually credited the fees that account had been attracting. That doesn’t happen every day!
-I’ve finally learned how to do internet banking, so I’ve saved time where I otherwise would be needing to physically go to the bank
-I’ve set up my payments and savings several months ahead through my internet banking. I feel so organised, yay

Advice/Influences
I haven’t exactly been looking very hard, but I have not yet found an advisor to help me accelerate my savings plan. I have a couple of friends and a cool cousin who I like to talk finance with. Also done some reading up on personal finance.

Rewarding myself
I rewarded myself with two handbag purchases this month :) Also made a few concert ticket purchases. The main reward to myself this year is the money I’ve invested in doing short courses. I think I’ll always have a course of some sort to look forward to.

Holidays
I’m trying to be much more clever about my holiday spendings. I have a holiday fund, and I will try to only use money from that when I travel. I entertained the idea of going overseas this year, but at this stage I feel it’s much more important to build my wealth than go away. Will take 1 or 2 interstate trips this year, and still should be able to comfortably have a trip overseas within next 12 months

Major goals
Buying property, looking at other investments (ie. shares), a vehicle, major trips are the major goals I have in mind

Where to from here?
-I need to sort out my health cover, and work out if it’s worthwhile to get private cover (it probably is, but I’ve not ever had it. Don’t miss what I never had)
-Read the rest of those personal finance books on my shelf
-Try to get some more clarity on what I want! My visualising goal will help with this
-Go to bed! It’s so late. I got carried away, but I must now sleep zzz

My finances are getting more complicated, not simpler as I wanted! I have a pension now. J said I should have had one since I was 20 so I should be investing more into it now to make up for it. I actually know nothing about pensions at all.

This goal is as boring as hell.

I didn’t know I needed my bank details on the first day at my new job, and I could only remember the numbers of the account I wanted to close. As I have had that one forever and the other only a year. Doh. So now my salary is being paid into the account I wanted to close…

I checked my itemised phone bill online for the first time today, I usually get a summary bill in the mail. I found out I am being charged 1p for every text message report I get! I called Orange and they said I have been charged since at least 2007 which is how far their records go back. I signed up in 2000 and wasn’t charged then (when they sent out itemised bills in the mail), so they sneakily started charging somewhere in between.

I called them and spoke to a nice lady who said it is up to me to check what I am being charged for and not up to them to tell me. She refunded me £5 when I asked about it, which is good but really just a drop in the ocean of wasted money… I don’t even want to think about how many texts I have sent over the years. A lesson learned the hard way.

I checked out ISAs today as there is a week left to get one for this tax year. But the interest rates are currently so low as to make them hardly worthwhile, if I invested £3600 I would only get £108 interest. I think I’d rather risk not getting anything and invest that in premium bonds like I originally planned.

I am rethinking my current accounts. The one I was planning on keeping has just announced it will start to charge for cash withdrawals and purchases abroad (except for some European countries), and the free usage was what made me open that account last year as I was going to USA for 4 months.

I am considering opening an ethical bank account instead, and closing both my current accounts.

Just to keep the finance feng shui energy up, I should list some more financial goals to work on over the next few weeks;

• Establish how much money I have saved to this point. As I have several accounts with different organisations, and need to see where I’m at right now.

• Have a mid year and end of year financial target. If I have a dollar figure to work towards, I think it will be a great motivator

• Educate myself more financially. I have a couple of books about finance that I have not read yet, and need to do so

• Be more organised with expenses like birthdays and events that I am aware of months in advance. I’ll have a look at which birthdays are coming up over next 2-3 months and start planning for them

• Be more organised with my holiday expenditure. This is one area I’ve been known to throw money out the window, due to being disorganised. Last minute flights and accommodation. Not again, unless I’m looking at bargains. I may decide to keep all my holidays local so I don’t put a massive dent in my savings, as I usually tend to do once a year

• A couple of admin things- sort out my internet plan (see if the cheaper option is possible) and organise monthly direct debit into one of the accounts that isn’t attracting monthly bonus interest yet

I’m sure there will be more to add to this, but that should be enough to get me started!

I was not too happy today! It actually takes a lot to really p#$@ me off, but someone managed to do that to me today. The tone of this post is unlike the usual me, and probably going to startle anyone playing at home (I apologise in advance!).

So I’ve been waiting for 2 months to hear back from insurance people regarding setting some insurance up. Not that I even wanted the insurance, the planner was just strongly advising it. So in December we completed a form together which (no exaggeration) took approximately 2.5hrs, and included some very invasive questions regarding my bedroom behaviour. The sorts of questions I wouldn’t expect a doctor, or family or a lover to ask me. That’s 2.5hrs of my life I will never get back, and the violation had me feeling like I needed to take a long shower to recover.

Putting that aside, they had 2 MONTHS to contact me if they had any questions, but not a peep from them. So we contacted them to see what the hold up was. Finally they get back to us to advise there were a couple of questions they did want to ask, and it was implied they thought I was holding back information. WTF?! I provided all my contact details and even ticked the box that said I’m available to be asked questions at work or at home regarding this application.

So I asked Mr Financial Advisor to invite this insurance company to take their policy and stick it. I told him there must be a more professional organisation we can deal with, that attends to their clients a bit more promptly? Surely that was not the only insurance company option that I have? He had no interest in letting me know what other policies exist (I wonder if it has anything to do with the commission structure of that particular policy being a better deal for him?).
So it looks like I’m on the market for another financial advisor now…

Ok, now that’s off my chest, I’d like to focus on the good. Since seeing this advisor late last year, it has sparked some great action in me. Never before have I been so savings focussed as I am now. I think I’ll enter all the good stuff as a separate post to follow. There is a lot to be happy about, and my financial situation is improving every day. Next step, to make my financial situation better than it has ever been. Which is entirely possible this year :)