Intro - Part 2

It's been some time since Babe on a Budget was first conceived, so I thought a quick update wouldn't go amiss. . .

January 2007 - Babe on a Budget was born, with the original objective of plotting my (now seemly feeble) attempts at saving £5,000 in 12 months. Looking back I was overspending much more than I realised, but I slowly started refocusing my mind on saving instead of splurging and even managed to save some money along the way!

April 2007 - I was made redundant (for the third time in my marketing career - so far!). Did a bit of temping before landing a maternity cover position, ironically at a leading Financial Services company which specialises in credit cards and loans. The saving continued.

June 2008 - That maternity cover position became permanent - yee hah! But in typical yin, yan style - our landlord decided to put our house up for sale!

Which brings us to July 08. Having briefly flirted with the idea of buying property with the help of a 5% gifted deposit scheme, we soon came to our senses and realised we'd be over stretching ourselves.

Thankfully only two people have viewed the house we're renting since it went on the market, with no offers as yet. And, well, at the price it's on for in the current market, we think we're still quite safe to stay here for the coming months. We still look at the rentals in the paper to see if there's anything that catches our eye, but unless it's cheaper or nicer it's not worth it.

Credit crunch is in full swing, but we're hoping it will work out well for us and drive house prices down.

As for savings, well my mind has definitely been reprogrammed. And, now that I'm clear on exactly what I want saving seems so much easier. At the moment I have the grand total of £2609.58 saved in my ISA, and I'm determined that by April 09 (which is when we want to start looking for our own place) I'll have £7k saved! Everytime I want to spend on a non-essential item I just think about the house, the wedding, the honeymoon and the holidays that myself and Nev will be able to enjoy if I save those pennies instead of spending them.

Consider yourself updated! xx