Priorities and posteriorities

savingholmes

Sounds like a good day. Happy New Year. 

killerpeaty

Hi raincoat, glad you're doing well!

I love snuggling up to a hot water bottle, it's just so joyous!

Raincoat

Getting towards the end of the month and its been fairly good, resisting a number of temptations! MSE activities this month include:

• Sticking on track to my reduced grocery budget (through planning meals and fewer ad-hoc supermarket trips);
• Buying a "Two together" railcard (our main mode of long distance travel is by train);
• Cycling for local trips; 
• Checking on refunds (including an errant direct debit that was cheekily taken - I'll have that £40 back thank you very much);
• Opting to cook and resist takeaways or restaurants (always something I enjoy more, but it does take some motivation and forward thinking, as well as carefully convincing my non-MSE friends that it’s a better idea).

There was a planned splurge on furniture and some other items for the house, but these were considered and researched, and all took advantage of some form of discount. 
Fingers crossed the motivation keeps up!

savingholmes

Sounds like it's going well.

Raincoat

An update for March. Things are pootling along, and I'm being careful when required. Now that my spending should be getting back to pre-Covid habits, its been helpful to compare and contrast. 

Overall I've managed to cut out a few things from my monthly spends compared to where I was in 2019 and not feel much difference (goodbye fancy gym, hello local council leisure centre). A big win is not buying any new clothes so far this year - I cannot emphasise enough how addicted I am to buying clothes!
Additionally, it certainly helps that I'm still WFH for a few days a week and this is likely to continue - half the battle I find with keeping to a budget is being organised, and reduced commuting gives me time to plan and prepare.

However, like most people I'm very much aware that the next year will bring some pressure, and I can see the impact in some of my spending. I'm lucky though that these can be absorbed right now and are just frustrating my MFW plans, so I've also made sure that my charity contributions continue, and have set up a direct debit to a local food bank.