It's been quite a busy month by our standards this month, starting off with our short holiday in the camper van, followed by cleaning the house, having visitors staying for a week, finishing the vegetable beds, attending a 50th Birthday party and doing a few extra days at the CS. Hence why my posts haven't been as regular as they used to be.
Financially, it's had it's expenses too, and as a consequence I went slightly over on the food budget by around £60. Some of this was due to buying in extra food for our guests for the week they were here, although they weren't big eaters. I did manage to rein in the food spending for the last week of the month and try to use up what we had in the freezer and cupboards and we have subsequently cleared out/eaten as many foods as we could, that had been hanging around for a while, which is always satisfying.
On the beauty/household/garden front I was also over budget by £70, mainly due to more stocking up on bulk household products and natural toiletries. I did also spend some money on bits and pieces for the garden, such as the chicken wire, some bean plants and compost. I'm hoping that next month I can rein in this budget, as it is getting a bit out of hand at the moment and I rarely keep within it.
My newly established home budget of £50 was also exceeded this month, but only by £5. I did manage to purchase some new towels from John Lewis in this amount, some new bowls for the kitchen from the CS and a new laundry basket for LB, so I was happy enough with this overspend. Next month, I'm using this budget to buy some new pillow protectors, a couple of new tea/kitchen towels, a few side plates and a king size fitted sheet for our new bed, as I am currently short of one to go with a quilt cover, but other than these items, we don't actually need anything in this category at present.
The only budget that I did come within this month, was my own personal wishlist budget, so I was very happy with this. I guess many of my needs/wants tend to be included in other budgets and I don't need any clothes, shoes, books, or other things at the moment.
I've decided that I'm going to start putting some money in a savings account this month. I was waiting until there was room in the budget, but I've realised that this will never happen unless I make room, so I'm transferring some money at the beginning of the month to ring fence it and will continue to do this from now on.
Forthcoming expenses this month include a complete new school uniform for LB and another 18th birthday present for a nephew. Other than this, there are a few small things that I need to stock up on for making home made toiletries and a few supplements I want to try, but hopefully, nothing too expensive.
One good thing is that I've been asked to start claiming travel expenses at the CS. I didn't claim them as I wasn't sure that I could, but the manager had realised that I wasn't and has insisted that I start to claim them back. I received my first lot of travel expenses this week. This will ease the budget slightly, as it was costing up to £30 per month on train fares.
Do you budget? How's it been for you this month?
We do budget and while some months we do very well, coming in under budget overall, there are those months that for some reason we go way over budget. I am hoping that July will be another under budget month to make up for the months we go over.
ReplyDeleteWe do have money set aside for a bit of a vacation over the summer, but I am thinking perhaps a couple of weekend getaways will do (can shave some cash off the spending that way).
God bless.