August 2021 Budget

So this month went as badly as I thought it was going to.  In fact, it probably went a little bit worse.  We had gone into August knowing it was going to be a financially tight month as there was going to be two weeks in which I wasn't earning anything and where my partner wasn't going to be earning the full amount he normally does.  We did expect to have one week where we weren't going to be spending much at all as we would be walking and camping, but unfortunately, due to some knee issues, that didn't really happen (that'll be coming up in another post).

Let's just get into it and start with the positives.  Our individual emergency funds have stayed at £1000 and we still haven't accrued any credit card (or any other) debt. Yay!  And now let's step into the bad.

Savings - haha.  This month was mainly about getting the balance in our current account back to where it needs to be to cover all the bills that will be coming out at the start of September.  We have managed to do that, but it has meant that we haven't been able to put any money into our sinking funds or into our four-month savings funds.  To make up for this and to reach the 2021 goals we need to now put away about £500 a month until the end of the year. 

I also wasn't able to put any money aside for my pension.  I would say that I had to priorities paying bills, and that is partially true, but I did also spend quite a bit of money on other things I didn't necessarily need this month and which could have gone towards pension payments and savings.

One of those things was eating out and takeaways.  The knee problems not only meant that we couldn't do the coast to coast walk but also meant that we weren't able to do any other walking or swimming that we had planned.  These trips would have helped get us out of the flat and away from possible spending.  I also find that when I sit around doing nothing much I get incredibly lazy and that laziness also includes not doing sensible, healthy, money-saving things like cooking my own food.  So, we got a lot of takeaways and snacks and ate out quite a bit.  Some of that is because we went out for my brother's birthday, but not nearly enough to really justify the amount.

We also had a lot more time to stare in shop windows and at things online, which is never good.  Some of it was on wedding things and things we needed to do the week-long walking that never happened.  But really those are just justifications and a fair amount of the spending could have waited until next month or, in fact, the next few months, to get.

I am actually writing this post a little bit early as there are still a few days of August still to go, but now that we're back at work hopefully the spending should be a lot less.  We've had two bad financial months now and we can only really blame ourselves.  So, goals for the next few months are to cut back greatly on our non-essential spending and to reduce our takeaway /eating out spending to just once a week (and this includes all the snacks we get here and there which will be the most difficult thing).  We pretty much have everything we need now and there are only a few items on our to-buy list - a pair of walking boats each and some elastic for a project I have going at the moment.   And as if looking at my budget isn't enough of a reminder that we need to do better I've actually put on a little bit of weight from all the eating out we've been doing.  I think my body is trying to tell me something. 😂