Getting shot of the mortgage sooner than 2049!

Bluegreen143

Well in January I achieved a 29% savings rate… this month we are at 18.77% with £3,300.61 spent so far and £762.79 saved.

But we still have a few spends expected (£65ish on bills/subscriptions, £60ish on Monday’s grocery shopping, £20 tomorrow as I’ve agreed to take the kids climbing with a friend - I may just take Monkey though actually thinking about it which will be £10 - don’t want to risk further head injury in Bambi!!!

HOWEVER given the car repair bill was £785 I think it was fairly inevitable that this month would be less good than last. If I hadn’t had that, I’d have only spent £2,538 - maybe £2,700 by the end of the month or so. This is about £150-200 less than I spent last month so not too bad. 

I’ll round up all the categories when the month ends.

Emergency fund 

Ooh and meant to say, we had enough in the car repair pot for the bill (as we’ve had eight weeks to move money about!) so haven’t touched the emergency fund. Currently standing at £2,948.64 in the easy access bit and £5,648.64 in total including the Help to Save accounts. 

QueenJess

OMG I think a takeaway was definitely in order after the shock and an A&E visit. I’m glad she’s ok.

Cheery_Daff

Crikey, I think I would definitely have been having a takeaway as well! What a frightening episode all round. Glad she's ok. Glad you've got the car back too (8 weeks?! What on earth were they doing?!) 

Excellent savings rate there, especially with all the bills! 

beanielou

Hope your DD is ok & over the shock.

Bluegreen143

Thanks all, she is fine now. 

Very busy weekend which has flown by, and I’m now somewhat dismayed to find out it’s Monday morning 😭 work is not enjoyable right now due to a lot of factors, not so much my specific job changing but a lot of change going on in the company and very poor morale across the board. Strengthens my resolve to be good financially - the better position we are in, the more leeway it gives me to find something else if things continue in this vein!

On Saturday Monkey had his first karate class, he looked a bit nervous going in but seemed to enjoy it enough to want to go back next week. We get two free trial sessions before having to decide if we sign up. Then on Saturday afternoon I took Bambi to a birthday party for her wee nursery friend, as I was satisfied she seemed ok in herself. Lots of fun as I knew lots of parents there and the mum put on beer and prosecco 😅

Sunday another busy day. I took the kids climbing, wish I hadn’t bothered taking Bambi as it cost us £27(!) and she didn’t like it. Bit too young I think. Monkey adores climbing though so that was good. 

In the afternoon we went to my friend’s for a group play date. Six out of seven in that group of friends made it and we had a whole bunch of 4-8 year olds running wild for three hours while we sat out her front in the warm sunshine! She has a playpark out her front you can get to without crossing a road, so it gave the kids freedom to just come and go - we could see them from where we were sat. Very enjoyable! 

I didn’t have time to bake or go to the shop to bring food, so I just gave the host £10 as me chipping in, as when I heard how much she had overbought I thought there was no sense buying more food to potentially go to waste! I could have done it cheaper if I’d baked but tbh it was £10 well spent on me having less stress and we all ate tons!

Red also went to B&M and bought garden and household stuff, as he gallantly spent the weekend de-moulding the bathroom (😷) and unblocking the drain. So mainly necessary spending, but this has been a spendy month for sure!!! Hoping to avoid further spends until March now - except our Tesco delivery which comes today. 

Full spending round up to come later.

Bluegreen143

I’ve managed to round up all my figures - because I’ve only got two DDs to come out tomorrow so I’ve plugged those in, and I’m determined not to spend anything else today or tomorrow!

Will break down into categories tonight but here is the monthly round up while I have the working out in front of me!

Income and spending 

CARRIED FROM LAST MONTH: £7,409.46

INCOME: £4,063.40
SPENT: £3,528.74

RECONCILIATION: -£1.42
NEW TOTAL SPENT: £3,530.16

Savings

NET ADDED TO SAVINGS: £533.21

FEB SAVINGS RATE: 13.12%

2023 AVERAGE: 20.89%

CARRIED FORWARD: £7,942.70

EMERGENCY SAVINGS: £2,948.64
HELP TO SAVE: £2,700

Bluegreen143

Spending breakdown (Feb)

Mortgage £528.86

Council tax £159

Life insurance £29.26

Internet £25.19

Nursery school fund £25.80

TV & music £20.24

Groceries £389.36

Household supplies £67.78

Transport: car maintenance £785.22

Transport: car loan £160

Transport: misc £65.20 (bus fares, parking charge & a couple of taxis)

Other: gifts £32.80

Other: home £88.72

……… £6 new placemats

……… £34.97 supplies to repair leaking bathroom

……… £13.74 charity shop finds

……… £12 new alarm clock 

……… £22 supplies for insulating front door

Other: fun £167.61

……… £113.15 date night meal out

……… £34.66 takeaway due to A&E visit

……… £18 fee to book camping 

……… £1.80 Icecream for Bambi

Other: charity £11.01

Garden £291.80

……… £106.76 plants from online garden shop

……… £48.10 wood (bike shed & trellis)

……… £136.94 misc (bark, soil, seed trays, packets of seeds etc)

Kids £125.48

……… £26 pocket money & tooth fairy

……… £29 football fee

……… £22.50 car booster seat for mum’s car

……… £35.50 climbing & softplay entries

……… £12.48 the bike club 

Kids clothes: £25.20

Red: £434.00

Me: bills £48.14

Me: social £45.10

………. £15 deposit for hen do

………. £20.10 drinks/coffees out with friends

………. £10 food contribution for gathering

Me: clothes £8.50

Me: other 54p

Misc/reconciliation £1.42

Bluegreen143

Notes on spending

- groceries well under the £400 target 🎉

- garden spend very high but I’ve been putting money into a pot for this because we knew it would be high this month. We will have quite a few garden spends next month too then it’ll ease off.

- fun looks high but it’s basically 1x meal out and 1x takeaway, both of which were fully justified in my book!

Spending levels are high this month but primarily because of the large car repair bill and the planned garden spending. 

Actually there is only a few areas where I think we could have cut back a little - maybe skipping this weekend’s takeaway for example. But I’m pretty happy with this month overall, especially sticking to the grocery budget two months in a row 😊

beanielou

All good then 

Bluegreen143

Spending to report as stuff comes out on the first of the month 😅

A couple of bargains too.

Firstly, today is our wedding anniversary and DH’s aunt & uncle kindly sent us £20 in a card 🥰 he picked up Yo Sushi stuff at the supermarket for dinner with it. We have a tradition of sushi for Valentine’s Day or our anniversary, but haven’t had time to make any. We were just going to skip it but the unexpected £20 meant we felt we could treat ourselves, which is what they sent it to us for after all. I’ve therefore not listed the Tesco shop below as it all came in under the £20 😜 

Second bargain, I wanted to buy a couple of sewing patterns from Hobbycraft (one for dresses for me, and one for long nightdresses as I’d love to make a couple of really classy nightdresses, which I’ve never owned!). 

It was going to be £25.50 including postage, which is £4.50, but then I:

- added another pattern to get free postage
- added a £5 off voucher
- paid using the employee benefit site at my work, where you get 9% off Hobbycraft 

Meaning instead of paying £25.50 for two patterns, I paid £24 and got three ☺️ the extra pattern I bought was for a dress for Bambi so will no doubt get made first too, as it’ll be quicker to do 😂

Of course I’ve yet to buy fabric, thread, new needles etc. Sewing is a very expensive hobby I find, but fun to try and get better at it. At least I can keep the patterns and over time reuse them and make different variations. 

Spending

£528.86 Mortgage

£13.25 TV license

£29.26 Life insurance 

£24.05 Hobbycraft
My spending - dress patterns

£1 Tesco
My spending - creme eggs… 🙈