This month has been another slightly spendy one, despite having good intentions to not buy anything that wasn't essential this month. I did visit a few charity shops, a car boot sale, a market and a yard sale trail, and picked up quite a few items in the process, but I tried to stick to very practical and useful items.
I did okay in terms of the budget though, mainly because OH paid for one week's worth of groceries, when we did a shop together just before Easter. In addition, my being in bed for three days with a bad back, meant that he also paid for a few essential top up food bits to tide us over, until I was well enough to go and do a proper grocery shop.
When I did go grocery shopping, I did buy extra shelf stable items each shop this month, mainly because of all the scare mongering online about future food shortages and price rises due to the situation in Iran. I basicallly just refilled our pantry with lots of tinned and dried foods, to keep us going and insulate us against possible future price rises. In spite of this, I came in just under budget in most of my budgetary categories this month, which was a positive.
April, was also the month in which I received a few annual interest payments on a couple of savings accounts and this meant an extra £200 or so in income. I added this to the new car fund, which I haven't been able to add to since I left my job and which now stands at £2000, (which is just enough to buy a decent bike these days). Progress is very slow with this fund, as I just don't have the income to add to it, but I will where I can.
Once again, I didn't visit an exhibition this month, as the one that LB and I want to visit at the V&A costs £28 each for tickets and neither of us had the spare cash to go this month, maybe we'll go next month.
Other than the above, it's been quite an uneventful month in terms of finances. I've just been keeping myself busy with relatively inexpensive hobbies, tasks at home and in the garden.
Looking ahead to May, it is OH's birthday this month, but I do have some money saved to cover the cost of this, so it won't need to come out of my monthly budget. I'm not sure what I will be buying him yet though.
May is also the first month, since leaving my job last August, that I need to start to use savings as income. I'm paying myself £250 per month and have a particular savings account that I will be taking this money from each month, until some pensions start to be paid to me towards the end of the year. It means I will have slightly less income each month, but I will just have to adjust my spending accordingly.
The majority of this income pays for my gym membership, life insurance, charity subscriptions and putting money aside for different sinking funds for birthdays, Xmas and a wedding gift later this year. Once these things are taken into account, I have about £60 left for anything else I might want to spend it on, so things are tight, but I've got used to it now and I am managing okay.
I'm very lucky that I have most things I need and don't really need to spend any money, but there is always something that catches my eye or needs replacing. At the moment, I'd really like to get another new bath mat from IKEA and a stainless steel oven tray. Mine keep rusting up, but I don't think stainless steel will. I may pay a visit this month. The trays are not expensive at around £6. I also need some new cotton face flannels at some point, but again, these aren't too expensive.
I hope you had a good month financially.
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