Low Spend July 2024

Having just returned from our holiday, and having behaved like a total spendthrift for the past few months, it seemed like a good time to embark on a Low Spend month. 

I don't know if I've done one of these before, at least not for a long time anyway. Since starting my current job, I've been enjoying having disposable income to do with as I wish, but I can't really go on doing that month after month, I need to take control of my finances again, start saving and building up some reserves, as you never know what is coming down the line.

There are a few things on the horizon too, that I will need some cash for. LB needs a bit more financial help during her last year of Uni, and I want to do what I can to help her. She also desperately needs some new (to her, we'll probably buy second hand) trainers, which I've offered to buy for her. She's hoping to get a summer job, but if she can't I may also need to help her with her overdraft, so putting a bit of money aside would be very useful at the moment.

I have been putting some money aside this year, in Premium bonds or savings, and I have been putting aside money for Xmas and birthday gifts, so I've built up a bit of cash for that and did not actually use it when OH's birthday came around, so it will mainly go towards Xmas and LB's next birthday in January 2025, and I'm going to continue to do that for the rest of the year, but I want to put aside extra cash for LB mainly.

July isn't the best month to do this, as we have a few visitors coming to stay this month, for which I will probably spend a bit more than I usually would, but as I've had a good few months spending way too much money on things that aren't strictly essential, I think I need to just get on and do it and try and get my spending back under control.

I don't intend to go cold turkey on discretionary spending, but I am going to give myself a very strict budget of £100 to spend on anything that is not groceries, entertaining guests or household spending, so this will include anything I buy for the house, the shed or myself. I don't actually need anything at the moment, so hopefully this won't be too much of a challenge. We'll just have to see how things go. I'll keep you posted.