The "W" Word #SaverStories

Saving money. Something I'm not particularly good at. I used to be. In fact, as a child, my parents used to joke that I would never spend my money, that at times I had more in the bank than them. For years, I never knew what I was saving for but it was nice to know that I had a wee collection of birthday money & pocket money stored in my bank account, complete with it's very own bankbook.

At 14 years old, this mentality became a blessing. In High School, we got to choose from a selection of holidays educational trips in S4, to places like Berlin, London, the Highlands, a golf trip... I, without any hesitation, chose London, somewhere that as a teenager I dreamt of visiting and instantly falling in love with. The sights, the attractions & best of all, the shops! The thing is, at 14 the income of money to save is at most limited. Back then it was a case of putting any birthday or Christmas money into my account, alongside he £10 I got from the paper round (that my Dad drove me round on a Sunday morning - thanks Dad!). It was the best part of a year that I saved for London, with an aim of having at least a few hundred pounds to take with me as spending money, namely for the afternoon dedicated to shopping! I can still remember getting on the train to London, beaming with pride over my £347 bank balance, thinking I could go mad in the shops. But as anyone who has visited London will tell you, it's bloody expensive there! In actual fact, most of my spending money was spent on the essentials for any school trip, like sweeties, fizzy juice & magazines! I did also manage a pair of converse & some bits of pieces from Topshop too. Looking back, had I of known anything about saving money, I'd have at least put my money into a savings account to earn a little interest, as although it wouldn't have amounted to loads it would have least been another packet of sweeties!

As for savings now, in case you missed it, after 7 years, two kids & two homes, on Christmas morning 2014, Iain finally asked me to marry him. I initially thought it'd be a long engagement given how long it's taken to come about but within a month of it happening, Iain was already looking at venues on Groupon, saying he, "just wanted to get it over with," (always the romantic!) so it now looks like the plan is to get married in the next 2-3 years, which suits me just fine as I'd like to do it before the boys are at school. We've both got debts to sort out as well as saving but it's definitely what we're working towards right now (hello, overtime!) and the RBS Savers Calculator has been great in helping us figure out exactly how we'll do it. And damn, weddings can be expensive! As well as saving what we can, I'm also aiming to avoid just handing over the credit cards; Iain would much rather pay someone else to do at the little jobs where as I like the idea of doing a lot of things DIY, from table centrepieces to wedding favours. Pinterest will do that to a girl! There is a few things that I don't think we'll scrimp on, like the venue, the dress (obviously!) & the food, but again it'll be a case of knowing what we've saved for each and staying within that budget. I cannot wait to get properly stuck in with planning & the details, even though I've actually had the entire day planned since I was about 10 years old!

Then there's the future and obviously it's the house. I've mentioned before how we're in a lovely wee house which is perfect for now but I'm not naive enough to think that as the boys grow older that they won't want their own space. So the top priority of the 10 Year Plan is to buy a house! Somewhere in Portobello, somewhere with character and somewhere that will be our forever home. I expect it won't to be when he boys are around High School age, so 7 years from now - after saving for the wedding - will hopefully give us plenty to get a pretty reasonable deposit and get ourselves in the position for a good mortgage. Plus here's hoping that the market will be much more favourable to first time buyers by then! And like any goal it's good to have a plan of action, which is where the RBS Savings Goal Tool is a god send in doing the maths & planning for us. Again, it'll involve lots of overtime, paying off debts whilst avoiding mounting any more & finding the right savings account to make it worth our while. Until that day, I'll continue to walk past & dream, as well as Googling any properties that have a For Sale perched outside.

The dream house, right on Portobello Promenade. One day...

This is a a sponsored post in association with RBS & their Fairer Saving Campaign.

For more on the RBS Fairer Savings campaign, click here.

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