Money Spent: £28.48
Money Saved: £0.00
Savings So Far: -£279.86 (oops!)

Well, the New Year kicked off in a very cost-effective style indeed. Love of my life and I saw in 2007 with a delicious home cooked three-course meal and a bottle of champagne that I had been saving for a suitable special occasion. At midnight we switched on the TV for Big Ben's Bong's. The fireworks in London were spectacular, and there were some pretty decent post-midnight displays throughout our estate too. Nothing like watching a good display at someone elses expense!

It certainly worked out much cheaper than going out. What with paying to get in somewhere that would normally be free, buying too much beer because suddenly you feel 16 again and feel the need to give into the 'Let's get sloshed' peer pressure that seems to affect even morally upright people on New Years Eve. Then there would have been the new outfit to splash out on, the taxi to get us home safely and possibly the post pub pizza to satisfy those beer induced munchies.

Today the family came over for a New Years Day/Housewarming party. Again, a nice cheap (but fun) option. Well, in principle anyway, although I probably did get a bit carried away with the buffet. I blame what I like to call the 'Nigella instinct', the predisposition to appear like a true domestic goddess as soon as any non-residents are invited over for food.

Mind you, as we can now live off the leftovers for the next week, I shouldn't panic too much. Plus the shopping was conducted in 2006, so it doesn't strictly count, although the rather large shop in Tesco's might have something to do with my deficit of £279. Oops! I guess the Clubcard points will offer some solace.

Unfortunately, the family wasn't the only thing that needed feeding. My car got a serious bout of the munchies on my way to picking my Mom up. Almost £30 later and the petrol tank was full. It got me thinking of how much I could save if I left the car at home. OK, so the car is relatively economical working out at about 0.13p per mile for town driving, which is all I really do, but even so, that's £2.60 per week on driving to work alone, that's £135.20 per year, plus wear and tear! I'm going to try and leave the car at home this week, see how I get on.

If I'm to accomplish my goal of saving £5k in what is now less than 365 days I realise that as well as cutting costs I also need to try and bring more money in. I'm willing to try, well nearly, anything to bring in an extra bit of cash. So, today when I stumbled across an email from My Offers inviting me to enter lots of free competitions it seemed to good to be true...it probably was! To enter each competition you have to complete a questionnaire posed by a company (e.g. one for NPower gives you the opportunity to win a Nokia N95 phone) which included giving your telephone number for a 'free no obligation savings quote'. I ummed and ahhed, figured that desperate times called for desperate measures and entered five competitions which allowed me to have a free bonus entry, and also qualify for My Offers FREE* rewards. Which basically means I can choose from a selection of gifts, so long as I pay £2.99 for the postage. I guess only time will tell if the chance to win outweighs the deluge of cold calling that will be making it's way to my mobile. Although there's always the possibility that some of their offers might actually be quite helpful.

Well you've gotta hope ain't ya?

Babe x