March Spending

 

They're tiny but oh my goodness these wee asparagus spears did make me smile this morning! 😋 There was a hard frost last night, my road was even gritted by the gritter.  But they look so good in the stunning sunshine we have this morning.

This is a non work day on my phased return plan.  I've done 2 mornings this week and will be in school all day tomorrow.  So far it's been a smooth transition back.  I'm just very tired afterwards.  I slept 10 hours last night which is very unusual for me.  My body obviously needs it.  One more day then it's the school Easter break.

As it's the last day of the month, it's time to look at my spending in March.  Ooft!!  It's been a spendy month 😲  Biggest outgoing was my quarterly energy bills. £591.22 for gas and £276.93 for electricity.  This was for Dec/Jan/Feb so the coldest months of the year.  I've been off work for a large part of that time.  Plus my son's GF works from home 3 to 4 days a week.  I can't ask her sit in the freezing cold while she works for the NHS!  So the heating has been on all day.  They have given me a contribution towards it.  Luckily I had planned and budgeted for it so not (too big) a shock.  I usually switch the heating off in April and try not to turn it back on until September.  I remembered to take and submit my meter readings this morning.  If you're in the UK remember to do this as the energy prices go up from tomorrow.

I also had to pay my annual insurance on the flat my eldest son lives in.  Again planned and budgeted for so not a surprise .  It had gone up by about £40.  I can't really shop around as it's a specialist policy for a family landlord.

I found yet another subscription that slipped through my December clear out.  This one was a quarterly one.  I thought I'd cancelled it but apparently I hadn't checked the 'cancel auto renew' button on my account.  Very sneaky!!  It should be done now.

There were a few unplanned items like replacing my wee garden greenhouse that was damaged beyond repair in the storms, plus a takeaway meal to celebrate my son and his GF finally buying a house (just round the corner from me!)  I treated myself to a counter top compost caddy to remind me to put raw food in my own compost bin and not the council recycling bin.

I'm sticking to one big supermarket delivery at the start of the month and one other top up shop.  That seems to be working for me.  Food waste is minimal although my son and his GF (who do all their own food buying and cooking) aren't quite as good!  I regularly see stuff they've put in the bin that frankly I'd still eat or would feed to the chicken!!  I've gently hinted they check with me before throwing out stuff but it's taken me years to get to this point so I'm definitely not criticising.  I hope I've been showing them a good example while they've been living here.  They do meal plan and batch cook at weekends now.

Total spend for March (excluding known and budgeted for house and car costs) was £576.31 😲

Savings account total: £2071.96 but...

I realised that I didn't explain (or did I??) when I set up my challenge to save £10k in a year, that I'm paying for my new kitchen and bathroom in monthly repayments out of my salary account.  I already have the full amount for both sitting in another account (my inheritance from my uncle) so I'm going to move that monthly amount of £509 into my savings account as well.  That will give me a fuller picture of trying to save half of my actual take home salary and the inheritance money won't just get used up in other things.  So I'm adding £1527 (Jan/Feb/Mar payments 3 x £509) into my savings account.

Well done if you're still keeping up!!!  The actual numbers are boring for anyone else but I like to work out them out so I stay motivated!

So, savings account at 31st March now has £3598.96 😊  On target so far but it takes a lot of effort and planning to stay on track!!

Three months down, 45 to go! 👍