So often we talk about saving money on everyday purchases. Keeping purchases to the absolute cheapest and cutting the cost of your bills. How about putting money away to save for events in your life? In this post we’re going to discuss how you can start saving today for the events of life.
Christmas
We have a separate savings account to save for Christmas. Before we did this we so often found ourselves in November, without any money to pay for Christmas gifts and food. After thinking about it we thought that we could save money throughout the year into a Christmas fund. This also means we can dip into it if there are presents on offer throughout the year. After putting £10 a week into the fund for the first two years, we dropped it down to £9 a week as we were nowhere near spending the full amount. Anything we don’t spend is useful for the dreaded month of January too. Find out more about our Christmas account here and start saving today for your next festive season.
Birthdays
Just like our Christmas fund above, many people have a savings account for birthdays. We don’t. We are quite reserved with birthdays, limiting gifts to about £50 for each child and maybe £20 for us as parents. It’s usually one or two gifts that the kids have specifically asked for or we’ve bought something and then dropped a few hints about, making it their ideas. Sneaky grown ups! This usually comes out of our everyday budget rather than saving up for it but what we do save ahead for is parties. When they’ve wanted parties out of the house we’ve saved up for a couple of months by cutting back on the food budget for instance, in order to afford to hire the sports hall at the leisure centre. As we’re quite creative a lot of our parties utilise things we already have. The Toy Story party, for example, we just used the characters the kids already had to gently theme the party.
Funerals
Have you planned for your death? Not the most pleasant of topics to discuss but it will happen to all of us. The average cost of a funeral is almost £4000. That’s a big chunk of money for saying goodbye to someone. You don’t want money worries when you’re holding yourself together following a bereavement. This is why some places offer a funeral plan, where you buy your funeral today, at today’s prices, and you avoid any price increases between now and when you die. This could be a great idea as the cost of funerals is on the increase. Just make sure you go with a funeral plan which is fully backed so you don’t lose your money. Alternatively you could put some money away to be used to pay for your funeral when the time comes. You’ll earn interest on it if you put it into an easy access savings account but the cost of the funeral will likely go up. Start saving today for your death.
Weddings
Put the word wedding into anything and suddenly the cost triples. Realistically, you don’t have to buy wedding stuff in order to have a wedding. Just buy a suit for £80 rather than hiring one, it’s probably cheaper and you get to keep it. Obviously the dress is important and you will probably be wanting a reception. Those couple of years that couples usually take between getting engaged and getting married are the perfect time to save up for your big day. Always remember though, it’s better to spend less on your wedding and have no money worries when your marriage starts, than it is the other way round.
Holidays
Do you take an annual holiday? How do you pay for it? Rather than sticking it on your credit card, why not plan for it ever month? Look at how much you earn, how much your monthly bills are see what you end up with as leftover. From that you can see how much you can afford to put away every month to give you a total amount for your holiday. If you can afford a couple of grand for a trip abroad, wonderful, book your flights. If you can only scrap together enough for a campsite, that’s fantastic. Even better actually because I love camping! No holiday should affect your everyday life.
University
Do you have children? If you answer is yes, did you know that 50% of our youngsters go to university? Whilst the tuition fees of first time UK undergraduates will be covered by the Student Loan Company, which get repaid once you earn enough (currently 9% of everything above £25k) there is the cost of living whilst you’re at university. You may have heard of the living loan, however it’s a means tested one, based on how much the parents earn. The difference between the full amount and the amount actually loaned based on that income needs to be made up. Start saving today and you will have enough to put towards the rent of student digs. If they want bottles of cider, tell them to get a job!
There are so many great ways to celebrate when annual events come up. If you’re looking for UK Event Party Venues, take a look at Square Meal. You’ll discover incredible spaces where celebrations can be incredible. These will make your party stand out from the crowd, give you a spectacular evening and leave you with lasting memories.
If you start saving today for live events, you’ll find yourself not worrying about money when those events come around. Of course, not everyone can actually afford to put money away into all these different accounts for all this different things, so only do what you can. Don’t let the future take away from the now.
