Review of February 2018, both Financial and Personal

FOOD AND HOUSEHOLD SHOPPING

In 2017 my food budget ‘months’ ran roughly from the 27th to the 26th of the following month, this was due to being paid on the 27th.

Now, I am paid weekly, so I have decided that my food month will now be a standard month in terms of the budget.

Sadly I decided to do this mid way through February when my original end date of the Feb Food Budget was set to be the 23rd, having begun on the 26th of January.

So by continuing to the end of the month this is perhaps why we have ended over budget.

£273.78/£250

I think we will do better next month.

DISPOSABLE INCOME SPENDING

As you know by now I divide my disposable income spending into sub categories.

I also spent a lot of money in February and now have approximately £40 to last me until the end of March.

But at least I have cleared my credit card bill.

SOCIAL = £89.60

TRAVEL (DAY TO DAY) = £15.30

WORK EXPENSES = £5.26

GIFTS = £111.88

HOBBIES – HEALTH = £64.77

POSTAGE AND PACKAGING = £11.20

HOMEWARE = £2.49

CLOTHING = £163.55

BEAUTY TREATMENTS = £25

NON ESSENTIAL FOOD = £21.29

HEALTH = £14

HAIR = £7.72

TOTAL = £532.06

That’s a lotta wonga.

I read two books in February, the above photo shows the two books. Both were very good, particularly Runner although I do love Lauren Graham a lot. Both were from the Library because I am being economical.

WOMBLES

I wombled over £219.73 of free stuff in February, using vouchers, special offers, things given to me, free cinema tickets, meerkat movies and so on.

NO SPEND DAYS (NSDs)

A small but mighty 5 No Spend Days occurred in February, bringing my total for the year to 18, which is under my target of 10 NSDs a month.

RECIPES

I made this yummy Granola.

WEIGHT LOSS

I lost 4 pounds in February.

SICK DAYS

Today was a sick day, bringing my total for Feb to 2.5. I feel awful about this, almost as awful as I felt this morning with my head in the toilet being sick (No, I am not pregnant).

LET’S SET SOME GOALS FOR MARCH!

Lose 4.125 more pounds (target weight for March will be 14 St 7 Lbs).
Run a 5k distance all the way.
Find a second job.
Stay within budget.
Read 2 more books.
10 NSDs.
Womble another £200 of free stuff.
Try 3 new exercise classes at the gym.
Try my best to not be ill.
Make 3 new recipes.

Financial and Personal Review of January 2018

Hi Everyone!!!!

So it is now mid-February, so I think I can safely say I survived January, let’s look at how well I survived January, financially and personally.

Long time readers of my blog will know I do financial reviews of my spending and accounts each month, but I have decided I will reflect on how I have developed on a personal level, or something like that.

FIRST OF ALL MY DISPOSABLE INCOME SPENDING……

WORK EXPENSES (Milk, Coffee, Things for my Desk) = £7.08

HOBBIES – BOOKS = £13.98

TRAVEL (DAY TO DAY) = £26.70

CLOTHING = £51.13

SOCIAL = £44.35

HOMEWARE = £17.51

GIFTS = £8.18

HOBBIES – HEALTH = £4.50

TOTAL SPENDS = £173.43

Not bad, I think it is clear I need about £200 as a disposable income each month, just to cover all my expenses.

JANUARY 2018 ACCOUNTS

I also like to look at my money in versus my money out each month.

Let’s have a gander.

MONEY IN

Christmas Present Money £120

Wages £144

Loan £750

TOTAL = £1014

MONEY OUT

Bills £674.15

Expenses post Dec payday £55.55

Expenses Pre Jan payday £147.13

TOTAL = £876.83

MONEY IN – MONEY OUT = £137.17

So I was in profit in January, of sorts. I did have to borrow money off The Boy, so I was not really in profit, but at least I didn’t spend more then I had.

PERSONAL REVIEW

In January I posted 2 Recipe posts.

I had 13 No Spend Days.

I (think I) read 2 books. I know I read 1, which was Dave Ramsey’s ‘Total Money Makeover’ , I sense that I read another one but I can’t remember what it was. Either way I need to read more.

I went to the gym 8 times and had one personal training session.

I believe I had 4 days of illness, boooooo!

I ‘wombled’ £197.76

I lost 8.625 pounds.

A good start to the year, but I want to do better.

August 2017 Expenses

Yo everybody!

I am watching Extreme Cheapskates, it’s great, I’ve never seen this show before.

Anyway, now that I have the internet again I can finally do all the blog posts I have to catch up on.

Let’s see how I spent my disposable income in August!

POSTAGE AND PACKAGING = £43.03

I sold some stuff on Ebay, and I always include what I spent on postage as an expense, even though in theory the buyer is paying for it. I also bought some stamps and had to post some birthday presents to people.

GIFTS = £20.49

I bought some things for my in laws to say thank you for helping me with my taxes, I included the purchase of wrapping paper and bought a card for my mum.

SOCIAL = £38.24

August didn’t involve much socialising.

TRAVEL (VISITING) = £33.75

Bought train tickets to visit my parents in September.

TRAVEL (DAY TO DAY) = £14

I did better in August about not wasting my money on unnecessary bus journeys.

HEALTH = £4.55

On account of my crazy insatiable thirst thing I have now classified chewing gum as a health expense.

CONTRABAND = £21.17

This is better compared to July, but I have lost my way a bit.

TOTAL SPENDING IN AUGUST = £175.23

August 2017 Accounts

Hi everybody.

August was a good month financially. But let’s see just how good it was (dun dun dun)

MONEY IN

Wages £1008.05

Tax Rebate £182.20

Ebay Sales £35.13

Selling books £19.03

TOTAL MONEY IN = £1244.41

MONEY OUT

Bills £835.32

Expenses post July pay day £48.02

Expenses pre August pay day £155.40

TOTAL MONEY OUT = £1038.74

MONEY IN – MONEY OUT = £205.67

Another month where I was in profit, I’m doing good on the whole this year. That £205.67 is roughly what I paid in debt repayments.

JUNE 2017 EXPENSES – How did my money get spent in June?

Well another month has passed, it is time to look at how my money got spent in June, what categories, how much, etc.

SOCIAL

Social costs in June = £81.73

TRAVEL (DAY TO DAY)

Travel costs = £38.30

GIFTS

Gift costs = £30.07

And now the category I affectionately refer to as the I FUCKED UP category.

I fucked up costs = £20.53

(This means my ‘I FUCKED UP’ category costs are now at £17.05 over budget, so I need to earn that amount and send it to my debts in order to ‘reset’ the balance)

So it is another month done, another month I survived, another month where I didn’t use a credit card.

The Travel Costs are far too high as many of them I could have walked if I had been more organised with my time.

The gift costs would have been about right if I had spent them all on my friends and family but it included some costs which could have been avoided.

The Social costs are less then I have spent some months and I feel good that I have been able to see as many people as I have without spending that much. It has been good for my mental health.

All in all it wasn’t the worst month for spending, I need to be a bit more disciplined though.

Financial Review of May 2017’s Disposable Income Spending

Hi everybody,

It’s the end of the month which means ‘END OF MONTH FINANCIAL ANALYSIS’ which is all fun and games in the Flo Household.

Let’s look at how my money left my wallet this month.

SPENDING

SOCIAL COSTS = £49.64

GIFTS = £15.05

POSTAGE AND PACKAGING = £12.57

TRAVEL (DAY TO DAY) = £11.50

TOTAL SPENDING = £88.76

Quite frankly this month was a struggle, and the good news is this month is also going to be a financial struggle what with my odd £20 of fun time spending money left.

Well, I have proven to myself that I can survive on £100 a month spending money.

But I much prefer spending double that.

Financial Accounts for April 2017

I thought it might be helpful to compare my money in during April, and the money that went out.

MONEY IN

Wages £1206.26

Birthday Money £90

Savings £20

Disposable income allowance £75

Extra Money £23.70

Money for Birthday £100

Money from Savings £295

TOTAL = £1809.96

MONEY OUT

Bills £1206.26

Expenses post March Pay Day £26.08

Expenses pre April Pay Day £323.58

Overspend on food budget £41.28

Train Tickets £76.10

Train Ticket £18.30

TOTAL MONEY OUT = £1691.60

MONEY IN (£1809.96) – MONEY OUT (£1691.60) = £118.36 profit.

So once again I seem to be in profit, which is good, but where is the money?

I think it is safe to say I wouldn’t be a very good accountant.

Financial Review of April 2017

Another month has ended. Things are getting very ‘real’ financially for me, so I am going to analyse where I have been making mistakes.

Here is a breakdown of my spending in April 2017.

FOOD AND HOUSEHOLD SHOPPING

TOTAL SPENDS IN APRIL = £241.28

This was £41.28 over budget, which is far from ideal. I am going to do a separate post about the food budget so I will leave that for now.

DISPOSABLE AND DISCRETIONARY INCOME SPENDING

SOCIAL

Social spending was an astronomical £210.90 and all I have in the way to offer up as an excuse is that it was my birthday near the end of March. But I wouldn’t say I celebrated it excessively. I did owe the boy money for a ticket to yet another gig, and I did go to ANOTHER gig in April, so maybe no more gigs for a while.

HOMEWARE

Homeware spending was a fairly reasonable £11.75 which consisted of things we did need, and some things we didn’t. I bought a mixing bowl as because I have been getting my bake on a lot recently having one mixing bowl just wasn’t cutting it anymore. I also bought a measuring jug as I broke our one. I also bought a magnetic shopping list, which I guess was style over substance. AND I bought two mason jars with straws and a nice tumbler for my Gin drinks which definitely weren’t needed, but their combined cost was £1.50.

GIFTS

Gifts was a crazy amount, I spent £67.95 in April on things I classified as gifts, but to explain further my sister was doing the London Marathon, and in the past when my brother had competed in a marathon I donated £50 to his charity, so I wanted to do the same for my sister. I also donated money to a work colleague as they are running 4 half marathons this year as they are turning 40, and it is for another good cause. And I was relatively good on a few of the other gifts using vouchers to drive down the costs.

TRAVEL (DAY TO DAY)

£27.20 was spent last month on travelling day to day costs and I have no excuses for it as I did not go anywhere that especially needed to be travelled to, it was just laziness and or a lack of planning that created this cost.

That is nearly £30 that could have gone on my debt or prevented me from being in such a pickle now.

WORK EXPENSE

£4 was spent on milk and other related costs in April, not bad, but then I did start a new job where the tea, coffee and milk are provided. So this cost should cease to exist soon.

TRAVEL (VISITING)

I had to buy my train tickets to go to my Granddad’s 90th birthday in May, which cost me £42.50. Whilst I might have been able to buy the tickets cheaper, I am glad that I am going to spend time with my family soon.

My total DISPOSABLE/DISCRETIONARY SPENDING in April was … £364.30.

This is too much, and was aided by the fact that it was my birthday and I had received birthday money, so I was able to buy things that I might not have been able to otherwise, such as the train tickets, but this is a HUGE amount of money to be spending when you are doing a NO SPEND YEAR and I think I have lost my way a little bit and may do a strict challenge to sort myself out.

January 2017 Financial Review

Hi everybody,

It is the end of the first month of the year. I am 1/12 of the way through a No Spend Year and it is time to assess how I spent my money this month.

HOME £5/£2.50

WORK EXPENSE £5.90/£7.50

SOCIAL £161.07/£25 (ooops)

HEALTH £13.50/£5

GIFT £27.87/£25

TRAVEL (DAY TO DAY) £2/£10

So good points:

I was under budget on a couple of categories.

There were no ‘forbidden’ purchases.

Nothing was put on a credit card (not that it was going to be but still I celebrate small victories).

Some budgets will be inflated this month but will balance out in the long run.

Due to my payday being before the end of the month some of these expenses were from my December-January pay and some were covered by my most recent payday.

January will be a weird month anyway as my account balanced was increased from having Christmas present money.

Bad points

I am over budget on most categories including a very, very high balance on my Social budget.

And that is all that needs to be said.

Hmmm.

Let’s look at my January accounts:

MONEY IN

£1485.62

MONEY OUT

£1378.45

DIFFERENCE

£107.17

Which in theory is great, except I don’t know where this £107.17 profit has disappeared to.

Better than my ‘January 2017 Accounts’ spreadsheet telling me I am in debt this month, but it is confusing.

I need to reign it in this February. I don’t have Christmas money going spare, I only have what is in my account and purse. I will have to be careful.