Thirty something dreaming of not paying mortgage

debtfreeoneday

Awesome fb earnings. Well done. 

kaycastle

Hiya @debtfreeoneday
Thank you Also its almost the end of the month and I haven't brought anything on Amazon. 
I don't have too much else to sell but I guess I haven't started really looking that hard yet. I have an old bike to sell which I haven't used since I got my new bike and I reckon that will maybe get up to £200 perhaps so that's exciting. 

debtfreeoneday

good luck with the bike!

kaycastle

Posting my spend analysis very late as was enjoying my time off  Also this weekend I need to do the May month analysis and proper download into my spreadsheet. My week off got a little bit spendy but I had a lovely time just living - and a lot cheaper than a real holiday I guess.

Edit: I have no idea why that smiley above has landed up looking so large on the screen but its amused me so I'm keeping it that way!

Spending 24th May - 30th  May 

1. £40.69 - weekly shop. This was just small top ups as we ate out quite a bit.
2. £56.54 - eating out/little cafe trips in our week off
3. £69.86 - Days out and random spends on things we liked in independent shops 
4. £203.49 - Finishing the garden project

Total spend: £370.44
FB selling: +£0  (was focused on having fun in week off, so still got to clean up bike and list i
Combined: -£370.44
My thoughts:

• Not bad for a week off as its still under the average £383 weekly spend!  Don't regret any of the above - we had such a lovely and relaxing time and I feel so energised and relaxed
• I must admit I wasn't overly impressed with any meals out - not that they were terrible but they weren't that special or worth it - its just I think we can cook better! So the eating out spend is quite low as we just started cooking special meals for ourselves instead
• Now that the garden project is finished the spending should come right down - have a few monies that didn't leave account until after bank holiday but this month should be very cheap.

debtfreeoneday

Glad you enjoyed your time off!

kaycastle

Spending 31st May - 6th  June

1. £95.39- weekly shopping. Bit high, didn't quite get back into the rhythm after break so did a few little shops.
2. £47.73 - eating out. This was mostly bank holiday spending that came out after the bank holiday! So was some of our holiday spend -
3. £69.20 - Misc spending, mostly OH's, I think on family presents etc. and he got something on amazon.
4. £29.51  - petrol
5. £29.7 - vet
6. £50 - hotel deposit for a wedding in a couple of months

Total spend: £321.33
FB selling: +£0  (need to list that bike!)
Combined: -£321.33
My thoughts:

• There was some bank holiday spend left over so hopefully this week will be a bit lower
• Ugh it seems really high but I guess there is the hotel deposit which had to be done and vet which of course had to be done. I just feel a bit silly spending that much a week on other things besides fixed bills. 
• Not counting the fact that OH brought something from amazon, I still have not brought stuff on amazon since I started doing this!!
• I did get a bonus paid this week of over £700+ which is great, especially as we're going to be on only my salary from August for about a year while OH does teacher training.
• Increased the savings another £400 to £19,800 and pension has pretty much gone up by same amount too...

South_coast

Well done on the bonus 👍 Definitely a good idea to get a handle on the spending ahead of dropping to a single salary. Do you have a target of what you would like it to be, or just tracking for now to understand it better?

kaycastle

Just tracking for now to understand where it goes, why and how I feel about it at the time to hopefully get to what is important
Need to do my analysis for May this weekend, will be interested to see how it differs from other months now. Can't wait to see that decreased amazon spend haha

kaycastle

I've done my May analysis - and very pleased
May was the second lowest spend month over the past 18 months!! The only one lower was the first month of lockdown last year.
Spent over £650 less than the average monthly spend and spent no money on amazon. I don't think that's bad considering we:

• Spent about £500 on a garden project
• Had a pipe burst so had to get a plumber

Grocery spend was -£77 compared to average. But takeaways were a bit more so not made much improvement here. There was quite a bit of lunch/bakery spending as well. 
Interested to see what June brings but I think I'm going to switch to doing a monthly review now as weekly is a bit intense - I don't want to stress myself out too much. 
Just a couple of months from being on one salary - I think then we will have no choice but to be more strict with the takeaways and do only once a month - its almost harder that its healthy good stuff because then don't have an additional reason to stop!! I know we can do it because a couple of years ago we didn't have any takeaways for about 18 months not even trying, just fell out the habit. The takeaway spend has just been so bad this year - the total is almost as much as the whole of 2020 combined. 

One thing I'm also proud of is our clothing spend - We've spent £15 combined so far this year on clothing, which I think was just some socks and underwear. Clothing spend was already almost £900 this time last year. 

debtfreeoneday

Well done on the reduced spends esp the clothing spend to date.