December 2022 Budget

So this is the last blog of 2022 and it's definitely been an 'interesting' year to say the least.  I guess it's sort of fitting that my last blog is a financial one, seeing as everything has been about finances this year.  The December's budget went better than I was expecting seeing as Christmas was involved and having our Christmas sinking fund definitely helped with that.  This fund is something we'll look to build up again next year.

Apart from one week we've actually been pretty good when it came to spending on groceries and eating out.  It shows that we can do it just fine and I plan on carrying that on to next year as well.

In November we did have to do quite a bit of spending on the car which ultimately led to us having to get a new second hand car.  This time we had to get the car on finance, which we'll need to factor into our budgets over the next few years.  This month has been much better when it comes to the car and we did get our car tax for the previous car back again, which I put straight back into our car repairs sinking fund.  This month hasn't really been the best month to determine how much we're going to save on fuel with our hybrid car, so it will be interesting to see that in the future.  Another positive is that I managed to pay a full year of my pension in, the first time I've been able to do that - go me!

Our spending has also been pretty good this month, but probably because we've been so busy sorting out other things as well as presents for other people that we haven't had a chance to spend on ourselves.  Looking back over the year it's pretty obvious that we not particularly good on that front so that's something we'll need to think about budgeting next year as well.

We're also ending the year with no credit card debt and our own emergency funds still in order so I'm very happy about that.  Unfortunately the four months saving didn't exactly go to plan, but at least the money was there when we needed it which is kind of the point of it in the first place.

And that's it.  This year has definitely shown us how important having the sinking funds and savings have been when it comes to helping make things less stressful.  This adds a bit more of an incentive to get them back up and running next year so that we're ready for the next set of problems, or hopefully just reading for Christmas 23.  

Happy New Year everyone.