February Roundup

As expected, February was another tough month financially. I had a few big birthdays to buy gifts for, and a housewarming gift for another family member starting off in their first home, so there wasn't really much spare cash to do anything much.

Luckily there was very little that I actually needed.  I did buy a bag from ASOS (£15), a pair of skater shoes for the summer (£8) and gym gear (£16) from Primark, but all other purchases were under £5 and mainly consisted of books from the Book People, CS or Poundland.

LB needed quite a few things buying in February i.e. new school shoes (£33) and underwear (£36.50) (This may sound a lot, but I decided to buy her better quality underwear from M&S now she is getting older). She also needed a haircut which cost another £40.

As a consequence of the above, LB's budget was busted by about £60. This is totally acceptable, however, as kids need what they need and for the past couple of months I have hardly spent any money on her at all. She deserves some attention for a change, as she asks for very little.

Inspite of not having any spare cash, my personal spending budget was still busted this month by about £40, because of the things mentioned above, which has been par for the course in recent months. A last minute splurge on a bikini for our holiday in April didn't help, although it was only £13 from Asda, so a good price.  I originally bought two, but returned one and spent the money on food instead, which was much more important.

The only other busted budget was the miscellaneous budget which once again went over by a pretty substantial amount (£75 approx.) This was mainly due to the numerous gifts I needed to buy this month. It was a smaller overspend than last month's though, which was a positive.

The food budget came under by £20, the household budget came under by £65 and the home budget came under by £43, which helped to compensate for the overspends in other areas. Another £100 was put by in savings too, so in all a slightly better month than January, although not by much.

As we go into March, I'm hoping things ease a little.  I will still have to be very careful though, as I am going for an eye test and will probably need new glasses, which will set me back at least £100. I've also got a dental check up and may need to replace a filling, which will  cost at least another £100. These are the main two expenses, so once these are out of the way things should ease up considerably and there should theoretically be a little more room in the budget in April.

Despite the difficulties and despite the fact that it will be essential spending only again in March, I'm feeling optimistic that this is the last year that I will have these money struggles in the early months of the year, as I'm determined to make some changes to some of my spending habits and avoid them in future. I've decided to go cold turkey on any spending other than food.  I don't need anything, so I'm not spending anything this month. I hope you've had a good month fiscally speaking.