It’s pretty typical of beauty/fashion blogs to be all about the spending, the enabling, the shopping ‘hauls’ and the sprees in SpaceNK/Selfridges/Boots/Superdrug (delete as appropriate) so with that in mind, today’s post is something different. It’s more about saving than spending.
Yawn, boring. I know. I’m a big fan of shopping and trust me, would much rather be doing that than squirrelling it all away for a rainy day (unless that rainy day is next Saturday, at Westfield). But, as you can probably get the gist of from the picture. Sometimes things happen in life that require more money than the average spree (my sprees have never gotten quite ‘wedding budget’ big…yet). But even on a smaller scale, there’s no denying that major life events like weddings (mortgages, buying cars, babies) all cost the big bucks. I’ve found that as soon as you mention the ‘W word and suppliers tend to add an extra zero to the price – then before you know it, you’re knee-deep in wedding inspiration mags and suddenly think that spending the GDP of a small country on table favours is totally reasonable.
Well, not really – I mean, I adore weddings and am beyond excited that this year I’ll be getting married (EEK!) and I want it to be a beautiful day. But the last thing I want is to be paying for it until we retire (which reminds me…should probably get myself a pension…oh god, I really am getting old). But regardless of how frugal/DIY you want to be with a wedding, it still costs a lot of money – and as such, saving becomes pretty darn important. Then comes the lists and the prioritising (for me, photos were the big deal – they will be the thing that lasts past the day and not something I wanted to scrimp on). But it was all about saving, before the planning…
Which brings me to talking about the goals part – in 2014, saving for my wedding is one of my major goals. We have the date set, which gives me a pretty major deadline. Which whilst scary, really helps when it comes to goals. Lloyds Bank have launched a nifty little app to help on your way towards creating your own goal for 2014 and then giving you some help towards getting there. Simply log on to their app on the facebook page, select your goal from the options of ‘home’, ‘life’ or ‘money’. So if you have something specific such as ‘buying my first home’ or ‘saving for a new baby’, or something more general such as ‘this year I will learn to budget better’ – the app can help you choose and share your goal. It then gives you a handy tool box of advice and inspiration to get you there – under the planning a wedding option they even have a link to inspiration on pinterest, which is almost (apart from dress shopping and cake tasting) the best part of wedding planning! So it’s not all doom and gloom and dull saving – it’s all about giving yourself the goal, and motivation to save for something that’s worth the sacrifice in the long run.
Even if your goal is to save for something that feels like a splurge, like a Mulberry handbag – setting it and working towards it is rewarding – and the feeling when you get there, SO much better than just handing over a credit card.
But the fun doesn’t stop there, to help you on your way to setting your own goal and sharing it with your friends on Facebook I have an iPad Air (16gb, wifi only) up for grabs (yes, really!). I’m not going to lie, I would like one of these myself, but no – it’s for one of you, as a little reward for setting that goal. All you need to do to enter is the following…
How to enter to WIN iPad Air 16GB WiFi:
– Head over to the Lloyds Facebook App
– Pick from ‘Home’, ‘Life’ or ‘Money’ and choose your goal, then share it with your friends
– Pop back to this post and leave a comment to tell me what your goal is for 2014
That’s it! Just make sure you check the rules below before you enter. Good luck & happy saving!
Details:
– UK Only
– Must be eligible to enter the app in order to win the prize draw (registered Facebook user, UK resident and 18 years or over)
– Must share your goal on the app, then leave a comment on this blog to be eligible to win
– Please be subscribed to email OR following the blog on bloglovin
– Please provide your email address with the comment. If I am unable to contact you, another winner will be chosen.
– Deadline for entries to the app is 6th Feb. This iPad Air giveaway will close on the same day (at 12pm GMT, 06/02/14)
For full T&Cs: iPad prize draw T&Cs
This post is sponsored by, and iPad prize provided by Lloyds bank.
What an amazing prize and a great start to 2014 for someone! Wishing you all the very best with your wedding planning xxxx
I follow as bloglovin and have picked a goal on facebook!
I follow via bloglovin…
I chose Money – This is the year I save for a rainy day!!
Good luck with all the wedding planning! Looking forward to some wedding posts in the future hopefully haha.
I chose, ‘This is the year I learn to drive’. I started lessons when I turned 17, but gave up when I moved to uni.
Good luck to everyone entering
Jayde | iamjayde.co.uk
Wow! An awesome giveaway xx I have chosen “This year I plan ahead” – need to start budgeting instead of spending on clothes and make-up!
Spending ban ahead xx Congrats on the wedding plans 🙂
Great post! I have a lot of goals but the main one is to get fit enough to run the 10k for the leukaemia trust! xxx
Good luck with your savings plan, I can’t believe how much weddings cost, my friend recently got married and spent nearly 25 grand! I better start saving now!
also congratulations!!
MyLushBox | YouTube xx
25k?! Holy moly! That’s a heck of a lot of money!
‘This is the year that I make my money go further’ was my goal. Let’s see if I can actually manage it! All the best with the wedding planning.
Nakita | nstylebeauty.blogspot.com
nakitabanger@gmail.com
I chose this is the year to buy new furniture. We live in a small flat and really need to get some better storage and a bigger wardrobe, plus paint every room!
bloglovin grantsarah
email grantsarah at live.co.uk
My goal after perusing the app is to fix up my kitchen ( I clicked the share this goal on FB to verify my entry https://www.facebook.com/jochrisbryan
We are caring for my Granny, she needed a wet room and sadly the kitchen became the casualty, it was in need of an update, but its going to cost. I am decluttering first and then working out how to create more storage while we work out how much it will cost. Blooming dear!! Got a quote for a cupboard and they said £1200.
Good luck with your wedding saving. Its such a lovely thing to save for, try to keep calm with it and enjoy the journey towards the big day xx
Best of luck with your saving, what an exciting year!
Sophie
http://what-sophie-said.blogspot.co.uk/
xxx
This is the year I start saving for the little ones
This is the year I plan for retirement
Oooh this seems so exciting, hopefully will be seeing more wedding plan related posts? I’m a million years away from getting married but I can’t deny that I have my future wedding dress bookmarked and a pinterest board already lined up for those year into the future! Good luck with saving up! 🙂
Absolutely, definitely want to do more wedding posts – as long as I don’t bore anyone with them!
What an amazing giveaway! Good luck with all the planning!
This is the year I start to plan ahead; leaving university makes it inevitable really… :/
Nicola x
Thanks for the giveaway!! I plan to sort out my debts. I want to get my credit card cleared and start tackling my student loan!!
Though wedding planning will be stressful, I just bet it’s going to be so amazing 🙂 Can’t wait for more posts about it!
My plan this year is to learn to drive! I’m the only one of my friends and family who can’t so I am pushing myself to do it. I know it’s not the most important thing for some, but I know it will open up many opportunities for me this year 🙂
2014 is going to be a great year, I have high hopes!
Good luck with saving!
=^.^=
Awesome giveaway! Would love to see wedding posts – I’m another reader that’s years away from the prospect but love reading about other peoples plans!
I put that my goal is to learn to budget better – I start my first grad job this summer and don’t want all that hard earned money to be frittered away without me noticing.
I wish you all the luck for your bog day! I’m getting married this year too (eeeek) but with Asian weddings you end up inviting well over 400 people so budgeting is a major issue for me lol!!
Oh my goodness! That’s a LOT of people! Very exciting for you too – how’s the planning going?!
How useful is the Lloyds App! Thankyou for bringing that to my attention.
I have a major issue in the fact that im a wedding planner and get given huge budgets by brides to be but its my own wedding in 2015 and what with a house deposit at the same time getting the money together for a wedding too is very expensive (we should have planned a little better)!
My taste is as expensive as my clients but with half the budget so im going to get very creative and pull in lots of contacts to help out!
My 2014 goal is to save £10,000 to cover the last of the wedding costs and the final amount of our deposit so that 2015 can be our year being MR and MRS and in our own home with my business hopefully booming!
Thanks for this wonderful post!
Keira
Media Savvy Chic
x
This year I would like to upgrade my computer.
Twitter: @FeaturingMissM
Fingers crossed.. This is the year we BUY our first house! So scary! X
This is the year I buy a new set of wheels……preferably before the current set of wheels snuffs it!
This is the year I upgrade my computer shared on Facebook fingers crossed 🙂
This is the year I upgrade my computer —————-email address which I forgot to put on my original comment oops – wittymacs@aol.com 🙂
well, i said, within the limited choices, that i’d start saving for ‘the little ones’…..but really i want to bloody well go to mexico!
I plan to get my finances in order and try and make my money go further
this is the year I plan for retirement starting with personal financial review. thanks 🙂
ive added you on bloglovin+ subscribed.X
My goal is to redesign the bathroom
I have pledged to move into the house I really want. We have lived in 5 different houses over the last five years and I am so ready to find our perfect house! I am following on Bloglovin as Hannah Igoe.
Fantastic prize, lovely montage of goals.
have used the app – this year I want to move into the home I really want.
We have rented for the last year and 2014 is the time to move on, find our own place.
No more magnolia, lots of holes drilled in walls. All the things that aren’t allowed in rented – oh and I want a garden, I really want a garden.
This year, I will start saving for my little boy – that’s my pledge on the Facebook app!
following on blog lovin’
I plan to do the house up this springtime and get the film from my wedding converted to DVD so I can relive the happiest day of my life easily and in a bit more definition!
Thanks for the wonderful competition