Monthly Round Up - April

April has really flown past this year. As a consequence, I haven't spent nearly as much money during the month that I normally do, just a pretty basic month.  It feels so strange to have money left in my account at the end of the month, and not just a few pounds either.  It's unprecedented for me ever. I'm going to leave it where it is for now, as I do potentially have some plans for it when I'm ready.

Anyway, here's the breakdown of spending for the month of April:

The Food Budget of £400 was overspent by £63.85. The main reason for this is that I did next week's food shop early, because I didn't have the car to do the shopping on Sunday.  As a consequence, the cost of next week's grocery shop, which would ordinarily come under the May food budget, has been included in this month's budget. Aside from this, the vouchers from Tesco and Waitrose that I've used this month, have definitely helped on the grocery shopping front this month.

The Household budget of £50 went over as usual by £36.79 .  I don't ever seem to be able to keep this category within budget. Perhaps I need to increase the budget. If, on the other hand, I keep the budget low, at least I'm striving to keep my spending down in this category. This month's over expenditure was in part due to the fact that I spent more on dog food than was strictly necessary, by buying a few bags of our dog's favourite dry food towards the end of the month, whilst I was in a supermarket that sold it.  This should keep us going for a couple of weeks into next month though.

The Miscellaneous budget of £50 was also overspent by £11.25, mainly because of a treat I bought for the interns at work to thank them for their hard work during the shop Spring Clean.  I did buy a few things for the garden and allotment this month too, which was the largest area of expenditure in this category this month.

The Home budget was £21.89 overspent due to buying LB a new clothing rail, buying a new umbrella stand and a new bread bin from the CS for the kitchen when it's finished. OH also bought a new lampshade for my new living room lamp, which was good of him.

My Personal budget of £25 went over by £30.94, mainly on account of my end of the month retail therapy haul and buying quite a few pieces of make up during the month.  I did also buy myself a new silver ring and a book from a CS this month and a few bits and pieces from Primark (T-shirts, socks, etc).

My Travel budget for work was slightly underspent this month. Although the full £40 was put on my Oyster card, I did end the month with a positive balance on it to carry over into May.

Finally, LB's budget of £25 remained completely unspent this month. I didn't class the £10 spent on the clothes rail as coming out of her budget, as it was more of a home expenditure.

As you can see from the figures, it's been a spendy ish month, but in spite of that, I've lowered my expenditure by over £100 compared to last month, so I'm pretty happy on the whole with my progress. I'm gradually finding it easier to practice not spending money as time goes on, save for on what I consider to be necessary things.