This month has been a bit of an interesting month financially as not only did we have a few things going on, but it was also a five weeks month which means there's a bit of an overlap with some of the bills. So, how did it go?
Our standard bills have basically remained the same as always, though as our gas usage was pretty low this month which should hopefully mean that we won't need to put much, if any, money towards it in September. I've also been able to reduce my mobile bill a bit more as well, using the We Are 8 app, so I'm now paying around £20 per month less than I was before - which actually works out at about £1000 a year so I'd say it was a little work well spent.
We also managed to do well on our eating out/ takeaway budget, keeping within the limits of what we'd given ourselves. This is quite a satisfying outcome for us as it's one of the areas I wanted us to focus on this month. I have to admit it has been particularly helped by the fact that we haven't had too many days off together this month, but we have also been a little more mindful of what we're spending and Ed has helped by doing the cooking on the days I really haven't had the will to, which is when we would have normally just gotten takeaway.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said for our grocery spending, which has been over budget again and I know exactly who the culprit is - snacking. Our weekly shops fit into the budget just fine, but it's the spending on additional food that we do on an almost daily basis that is taking us over budget. So I need to decide whether I just bite the bullet and buy the snacking things with our general grocery shop, greatly bringing down the price as we'd be buying in bulk but with the possibility I'd eat most of it in one go, or we remove snacking almost completely. The second option is obviously the more preferable and has the additional benefit of being good for our health, but is probably a bit unrealistic. Fuel was also been a little higher this month as we took a trip to Devon to see family, but only by about £30 so it's not really anything to worry about.
On another positive, I did manage to put more money into my pension again this month (always good), and we managed to do well with our personal spending again. There were two spends we haven't been able to prepare for. One was me needing to get some antivirus software for my new laptop and the other was Ed needing to buy some more shoes as his others gave up the ghost. I have noticed that I've become more mindful again when it comes to buying things and I've even written a list of the things I know I want to get in the future with how much I think the items will be. I'll be spacing out buying these over the next few months and depending on what I've already spent that month. We have done a bit of spending on the holiday we'll be taking in October, mostly on accommodation, but we like to get these things all booked in advanced so we don't need to worry about it when the time comes and it spreads the cost.
We have also managed to put some more money into our savings account. It's not as much as I was hoping, but still a good amount and, seeing as our spending hasn't been too bad this month, I'm not sure we could have actually been able to put anymore in. We've already passed our goal this year of saving a third of the total amount any way, so anything extra that goes in is a bonus that goes a long way to helping us reach our overall goal sooner.
So it hasn't been too bad a month really. We succeeded in most of the things we had planned to do we just need to work on our food spending a little bit more. I am wondering if we need to go back to cash spending on the groceries again to help us curb this as that definitely worked well the last time we tried it. If we do that over September it will hopefully reset us back into spending less and help get this little section back under budget, which means more into savings. As when we get paid has now changed I'm thinking about changing how our weeks run so that instead of running Saturday to Friday we are now going to the usual Monday to Sunday, which for some reason feels a lot easier to work with - though I don't really know why. This does mean that the first week in September will be nine days long instead of seven. It also means that I'll be doing the budgets on a Sunday now instead of a Friday, which makes my end of the work week a little more relaxing.
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