Financial review: February

Before I even look at the figures, I’m feeling a little more confident about this month. There were a few ‘cheats’ but I’ve mostly stuck to a £100 cash budget for everything. Let’s see what that tallies up to…

Joint account expenditure

Non-negotiable outgoings
Mortgage: £412.97
Childcare: £222.00
Energy: £99.00
Internet: £11.49
Phone: £60.61


Extra planned expenses
MOT (my car): £39.95
Cash: £50 (part of £100 monthly budget – I spent the rest on my card but managed to stick to roughly £100 for groceries etc for the month if you discount the veg box)

Groceries
Riverford: £56.19
Aldi: £27.20
Co-op: £6.10

Other
Petrol: £65.01
Pets: £42.96
Homebase: £10.29

Total: £1103.77

Considering Karl’s car broke down (albeit temporarily) & I had my car MOTed this month, as well as having guests around, I think we did quite well to get this lower than last months! No council tax this month though. I think we should be aiming to squeeze under 4 figures in March.

Current account #1 expenditure

Non-negotiable outgoings
n/a

Extra planned expenses
Birthday: £20

Groceries
none

Other
Cash: £10
Eating out: £19.08
Petrol: £88.41 (filled the tank when Karl’s car broke down just in case I needed it.. big mistake!)

Total: £137.49

Much improved this month :) Still, that extra £50 worth of fuel ended up being used ‘because it was there’ so sticking to my £30 petrol budget in March should knock this back further.

Current account #2 expenditure

Non-negotiable outgoings
Credit card: £25

Extra planned expenses
Credit card: £75 (overpayment)
Savings: £200 (gradually re-saving cost of hosting from last month)

Groceries
none

Other
Business expenses: £49.67
Paypal: £107.99
Amazon: £26.34
Ikea: £15

Grand total: £499

Disappointing that this is more than last month even if you discount the savings. I think I need to start breaking down the Paypal spends as this is a big contributor. I definitely spend more if I can checkout online without needing my card! What’s especially disconcerting re: Paypal is that those spends are on top of £50 worth that didn’t even see my bank balance because they came out of funds in there! Eek.

We also made a significant overpayment (£2000) on the mortgage in February, which seems to have been rejected somehow – we’re chasing that up to see wtf is going on. The plan is to match it again this month if we can get it sorted. Although we will always keep a good-sized emergency fallback (especially important now that I’m self-employed) there’s no point in paying more on interest on the mortgage than we’re earning on the savings!

5 Comments

  1. I’m not sure what the cost of living is where you live, but if it’s anywhere near close to the cost around where I live, you’re running a very impressive budget for a family of four! I hope that there isn’t too much hassle with the overpayment, though. Hopefully, you did not lose 2000 pounds.

    • Jem

      08 Mar at 7:47 am

      I don’t know what the cost of living is officially but we manage by not spending on things we don’t need – Sky tv, expensive phone contracts etc. I know some people look at how we live and think we must scrape every penny but the reality is we do OK.. I prefer luxuries like my veg box, so I know what I’m putting in my kids is good food (I could waffle on about this all day ;))

      The £2000 bounced back into our account – we’ve just got to figure out why it wasn’t accepted!

      • Does your mortgage company only allow you to overpay a certain amount per month/year – could be one reason why the payment bounced.

  2. Jem

    08 Mar at 1:39 pm

    @Lee: yes – 10%, but this is the first overpayment, within the limits etc and we arranged with them beforehand. It’s odd, but I’ve not yet had the time to query it. On the todo list for the weekend :)

  3. You lost me at £100 per month for food. How is that possible? :) We have 3 adults and 2 kids in the house and I easily spend £100 a week :|