"I saved £4k in six months by giving up drinking, meals out and shopping"
A woman saved £4k in just six months by going "no spend" - and cancelling subscriptions and ditching alcohol and meals out.
Mia Westrap, 26, decided to overhaul her finances when she was unable to afford to embark on a long-distance relationship with an Australian man she was dating.
When her former partner of six months flew home, Mia said the pair went "cold turkey" and didn't communicate because she wasn't able to afford flights to Australia.
As a health and social care worker - earning £2.1k-a-month - Mia says she realised she was spending too much on socialising.
She would easily spend £200-a-month on eating out and £100-a-month on alcohol without giving it a second thought.
At the start of her "no spend year", Mia set herself the target of saving £4k in 12 months but hit her target in June and has now upped her target to £7k.
Mia, from Southampton, Hampshire, said: "My goal for 2024 was to save £4k as that would be three months worth of living expenses.
"I hit that in just six months and have now set my target to £7k.
"I look back and wonder how I was spending £500-a-month on nothing material.
"I had nothing to show for the money I spent - my money went on food, drinks and maybe on clothes but I already had plenty."
Mia had heard of people doing no spend years but it wasn't something she was interested in or found relevant.
But, after a major abdominal surgery in January, she thought it was a perfect time to start.
She said: "I realised that I was going to be housebound for the first month of the year so I thought why not give it a go.
"I have been finding it quite easy through the winter as I don't want to go out at the moment anyway.
"I will be interested to see how difficult it gets in the summer when I want to go out for meals and socialise with friends."
Mia says she didn't live an extravagant lifestyle beforehand and it was the little purchases that would creep up on her - such as coffees, meal deals and Pepsi Max.
She said: "I didn't have many holidays really, I grew up incredibly poor.
"Going on holiday was something I was not used to.
"I was addicted to Pepsi Max - I was spending £3 to £4 every day which amounts to £1,424 a year.
"When I took a step back to see where my money was going, I realised it was these little costs that I couldn't account for."
Usually, during the summer, Mia says she and her friends would go to beer gardens or out for meals but this year they have been doing picnics and dinners in - to save money.
She said: "My friends have been really supportive, we have been having a lot of dinners in or going for picnics.
"Usually we would go for meals out every time the sun came out or go to beer gardens.
"My summer has been really good and I haven't felt like I have missed out on anything."
Mia Westrap, 26, decided to overhaul her finances when she was unable to afford to embark on a long-distance relationship with an Australian man she was dating.
When her former partner of six months flew home, Mia said the pair went "cold turkey" and didn't communicate because she wasn't able to afford flights to Australia.
As a health and social care worker - earning £2.1k-a-month - Mia says she realised she was spending too much on socialising.
She would easily spend £200-a-month on eating out and £100-a-month on alcohol without giving it a second thought.
At the start of her "no spend year", Mia set herself the target of saving £4k in 12 months but hit her target in June and has now upped her target to £7k.
Mia, from Southampton, Hampshire, said: "My goal for 2024 was to save £4k as that would be three months worth of living expenses.
"I hit that in just six months and have now set my target to £7k.
"I look back and wonder how I was spending £500-a-month on nothing material.
"I had nothing to show for the money I spent - my money went on food, drinks and maybe on clothes but I already had plenty."
Mia had heard of people doing no spend years but it wasn't something she was interested in or found relevant.
But, after a major abdominal surgery in January, she thought it was a perfect time to start.
She said: "I realised that I was going to be housebound for the first month of the year so I thought why not give it a go.
"I have been finding it quite easy through the winter as I don't want to go out at the moment anyway.
"I will be interested to see how difficult it gets in the summer when I want to go out for meals and socialise with friends."
Mia says she didn't live an extravagant lifestyle beforehand and it was the little purchases that would creep up on her - such as coffees, meal deals and Pepsi Max.
She said: "I didn't have many holidays really, I grew up incredibly poor.
"Going on holiday was something I was not used to.
"I was addicted to Pepsi Max - I was spending £3 to £4 every day which amounts to £1,424 a year.
"When I took a step back to see where my money was going, I realised it was these little costs that I couldn't account for."
Usually, during the summer, Mia says she and her friends would go to beer gardens or out for meals but this year they have been doing picnics and dinners in - to save money.
She said: "My friends have been really supportive, we have been having a lot of dinners in or going for picnics.
"Usually we would go for meals out every time the sun came out or go to beer gardens.
"My summer has been really good and I haven't felt like I have missed out on anything."
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00So this is my seventh payday of my no-buy year and if you don't know me my name's Mia and I'm
00:04doing a no-buy year this year which means that I can't spend any money that isn't an absolute
00:09necessity and I started it because I was getting into this habit every single month of ending up
00:15in my overdraft, completely maxing it out, not saving any money and just feeling broke all of
00:21the time. So I decided at the beginning of this year that enough was enough, I'm going to build
00:26an emergency fund, I'm going to get into investing and the only way I can do that is if I stop
00:32buying anything. Share that with you guys on here, so today I got paid so I'm going to go through
00:37that with you now and talk about how much I got paid, where that money is going and what I'm
00:43anticipating will happen for the rest of the month. So today I got paid £2,142.98 and immediately I
00:53put £491.56 into my savings account so that's my emergency fund in a high-yield savings account and
01:03it was a peculiar number because I wanted it to round it up and now I've got £4,300 in my
01:09emergency fund for the year. I put £50 into the S&P 500, it's currently at like a 5.05% return
01:20today so at the moment I've got about £369.41 in the S&P. I'm also due around £50 off TikTok
01:30this month which is less than I usually get but I haven't been posting very often this month
01:35because of some stuff happening in my personal life and I'm also going to be paid shortly for
01:40a brand deal that I did at the beginning of the month and that was another £50 so I can add
01:45another £100 into my budget because of you guys. My outgoings for the month are around £1,284.32
01:56so taking away all of my outgoings plus the money that I've put into savings and investing
02:03because I think it's really important to pay myself first so that I don't even see that money
02:08basically getting taken out of my bank account. I've got around £317.08 to budget for today. I'm
02:16going to do a weekly food shop with Asda and that usually costs me around £60-70 and it usually
02:23lasts me around two and a half weeks. I'm going to be spending quite a bit of money this month
02:28on travelling so I need to get to London for the Eras tour on Friday the 16th and I've also got an
02:35event this weekend that I need to travel to but I should be able to get there by bus so that won't
02:40be a problem. So yeah I'm feeling very positive about this month following this payday. I feel a
02:47lot more better after getting that out of the blue parking fine that I had to pay last week and yeah
02:55just overall feeling very positive. It's like kicked me back into gear with this no-buy year
03:01so yeah I'm very excited and I will share as much as I can with you guys over the next few weeks.