Savings

Although I do keep a budget spreadsheet, it essentially serves to make sure I'm not overspending and compared to many finance spreadsheets out there, it is pretty basic. One thing I've never incorporated is a good way to look back at totals at any given time. I can look back and see what my current account balance was at the end of a month but that's it. I just updated the page with the overview of accounts manually on a continuing basis. Perhaps something to work on in the future sometime. I really should do some Excel courses anyway, and it would give me something practical to practice on.

In the meantime, I've decided to just take a snapshot of my sidebars whenever I update them. It's the same story there - I just update them manually on a continuing basis.

I can tentatively say that things are kind of going alright with money at the moment. I do have a small balance on my credit card but will clear that as soon as an outstanding invoice is paid. I could use savings but it's a psychological thing and since it's not a lot of money, I'm going with it. I have been making a better effort to live within my normal salary though - need to stop getting used to having side-income to stop up the gaps. I will use some of my side income to fund a trip or two later this year and to finally do some of that house stuff I've been promising to get done for over a year. Otherwise, I will be using it to pad my various savings accounts and give myself a bit of a head start. And next year, the target will be as far as possible to save all of my side income.






This month, I got to the end of the month with just over €40 in my purse and €45.22 in my current account. So I am calling that the start of the float I have been wanting to have in my current account - well, I have adjusted the totals in my spreadsheet to show less €50 (the 45.22 plus rounding up from this month's salary lodgement). €50 seems to be a good number for me to work with so I'll be trying to add €50 to the float every month by not spending to zero, but rather to €50 and then adjusting my totals to subtract that fifty every month. We'll see how it goes.