I said that I would keep a note of my spending for a week.  Here are the results:-

Monday

• 69p chocolate
• £2.85 lunch
• £15 music lesson

Tuesday

• 69p chocolate
• £2.85 lunch
• £1.95 magazine

Wednesday

• £1.58 chocolate
• £3.80 magazine

Thursday

• £1.58 chocolate
• £60 blouse and jumper (on sale)
• £20 going out

Friday

• £1.58 chocolate
• £3.50 lunch

Saturday

• £5 window film (for double glazing the house)

Sunday

• £67.28 grocery shoppping for the week

It looks like I need to consider cutting down on food, and judging by the amount of chocolate I get through – there might also be some undisclosed chocs in the lunch figures – my waistline might thank me too.

Chocolate and bought lunches cost £13.74 (or £714.78 per year)

Magazines cost £5.75 (or £299 per year)

Obviously, I’ve still got to feed myself at lunchtime but if I took my lunch in each day I think I could cut the cost significantly.  Can I do without any magazines?  On the face of it they are a frivolous luxury.  On the other hand, they are something I really enjoy.

Can I do without buying clothes?  Well, my wardrobe is full to bursting so I probably should…

So, I got myself a widget.  As you can see, I have worked out that I am 1.5% of the way to target.

Working out that figure consisted of seeing how much was left in my current acount at the end of last month and then adding it to the value of some shares*.  The grand total was £1,500.

In future I want the exercise of checking my wealth to take a bit longer than that. 

*I have alloted a value of £500 to the shares.  This is the amount that was paid for them and they are trading a bit above that at the moment