Low Spend March - A Complete Fail

Well, I have to admit that on the low spend front, March was a complete fail. I really don't know what happened to me, but I was in way too spendy a mindset, which was not good.

The first week wasn't too bad, but by the end of the second week things got much worse. I got it into my head that I needed some new gym leggings. After trawling Vinted for a favourite brand that I know fit well, are reasonably priced and good quality, I couldn't find what I wanted, so I decided to head to the actual store and buy a pair new. These cost £18, which isn't that bad, but I then found a really nice pair of Chelsea boots in there that I couldn't resist at £17.50. Now, I have wanted some new Chelsea boots for a while. I'd been wearing my old ones at work and they were looking shabby, so I stopped wearing them for work in the hope I could preserve their life. At least now, I can start wearing them for work again, as I have the new pair for wearing outside of work now.

I then visited my favourite charity shop, and whilst I only had £8 of my thrifting budget left to spend, I went ahead and spent £19. It just so happened that I found a pair of gym leggings in there, from the brand I like. I could have taken the new ones back, but decided that it would be good to have two new to me pairs, as this second pair cost only £3. I also found a pair of Phase Eight trousers whilst in there for £3, which seemed a really good deal as they are a good quality brand, so I went ahead and bought them. It was the small additional items that took me over by £11. I found a massive industrial sized reel of black thread, which will be perfect for slow stitching for only £4, a pair of brand new thermal gloves for £2 (I'd recently lost a pair), a couple of bits of stationery for £1 each and then I spent £3 on a bag, solely for the strap fittings, for a project I was planning to do. (I took a look on eBay and it would have cost more to buy them new, so I bought the bag to save me a little bit of money). Not disastrous, but not good either.

A few days later, I bought a silver ring on eBay, one that I've been watching for a while and which was reduced by a couple of pounds and I then went on to compound this online damage by spending £30 on an online order for some slow stitching embellishments, mainly fabric patches and trimmings of varying types. I really shouldn't have, but temptation and my current obsession with slow stitching got the better of me, but it will keep me going for a good while and some of the trimmings were for a project I'm starting for LB, so I'm glad I bought them, as hopefully, they'll improve the outcome. That's the problem when I get a new obsession, it often leads to a bit of a splurge. Hopefully, I've scratched that itch for a while now.

The next splurge was attending a car boot sale mid way through the month. I'd not been to one for ages and with the weather being a bit sunnier (although still very cold) it made for a nice trip out when I had a Sunday off work. I did go with a fixed budget of £20 and a list of things to look for, i.e. anything good for slow stitching (but had to be very inexpensive on account of what I'd already spent recently), a vintage tin for buttons, plants to brighten up the garden, particularly pelargoniums, anything else that caught my eye, so long as it was necessary or very inexpensive. I've posted about what I did buy and I did get a lot for my money, but it did signal to me that I needed to stop spending on unnecessary things for the rest of the month, as I'd already spent way too much.

For the rest of the month, I tried very hard to keep away from any spending temptations, which wasn't easy. I did book a dental appointment and had to pay a £45 deposit in advance, which was quite annoying actually. It was an extra expense that I really wasn't expecting. I also signed up for a 9 week sewing course towards the end of the month, which again I hadn't been planning on doing, but I'm glad I did and it only cost £53.

On the positive side, March wasn't too bad for savings. I did manage to put away £200 towards the car fund and I put £6.39 into a savings account to round up the balance in there to the nearest £100. I also won £125 on the Premium Bonds which was a major bonus and which got reinvested in more bonds and I put money aside for LB's bills and Xmas/birthday gifts as usual. So all was not lost. I also opened a new cash ISA to get a better interest rate on some savings this month, which hopefully will benefit me going forward. I may put the car fund money into this account too, so I don't have to pay tax on any interest I earn.

Next month, is going to be a difficult one financially for me. My wages this month were probably the lowest they've ever been since I started this job, as I got very few extra hours over my contracted hours. I'm not particularly mad about it, as I enjoy working less hours, but with all my expenditure this month, some of which was on my credit cards and has to be paid off next month, this will mean that I will have an extremely limited budget for spending on anything other than the absolute essentials of food/household items, which kind of serves me right for being so spendy this month. I have also promised myself and LB a long overdue haircut which will make a big dent in available cash. It's also looking pretty unlikely that I will be able to put much money in the car fund next month, we'll just have to see how things go.

So, next month will certainly be a challenge, but I'm actually looking forward to it, as it might help me develop some financial discipline. I'll let you know how I get on.