Hi guys,
Well a crazy end to August so apologies for the lack of posts!
Today I’m sharing my budget for September. I am going to be paying my credit card debt off in full as usual and I’ll be fully keeping track of what I’m spending. This month will be my clearing-out-bad-habits month (aka housekeeping) so from October it will be looking more normal. I have grouped all the mini bills into categories for simplicity this month but future budgets will have a more detailed breakdown.
Background: Our bills are quarterly and shared between me and my housemates and I don’t pay rent in lieu of looking after the house and sorting all the admin for my housemates so don’t think I’ve omitted these by accident! I pay nearly everything on credit card so I can get my rewards but have to admit I’ve been also dipping into my account on a number of unexpected expenses recently including visiting my Uncle in Hong Kong before his passing, lending some money for an emergency and I was probably a bit over budget when I was in San Francisco back in April! So this month I will be clearing the slate so that the money I put on my credit card will be sitting in an account until it needs to be paid.
Groceries – £200. I’m going to try and start cooking more at home. This number might be less as I’ve been working 60-70 weeks recently so fitting in shopping and the actual cooking time may be a problem! I’ll see how this month goes and adjust accordingly. This also includes some groceries for my ex as I’m helping him get back on his feet.
Petrol – £150. I’ve increased this amount recently due to my second job. I have to travel an hour each way and they want to increase my days so hopefully this will be an accurate estimate.
Spending Money – £70. To cover odds and ends. I work pretty hard so I don’t restrict myself to much on odd treats here and there.
Eating Out – £100. It’s my sister’s birthday this month and I’m meeting up with a few friends when my schedule allows for the first couple of weeks for dinner.
Kindle/iTunes – £20. I love reading and playing games to de-stress after a long day so I have a separate little budget for this.
Short Term Savings – £500. This is divided into different regular savings accounts I have. I want to build up my emergency fund a little more before diverting all my savings to a place of my own.
Additional Pension Contributions – £110. I’ve recently been worrying about planning for retirement so I have started contributing extra to my workplace pension and setting up my own private one too.
Pet Insurance – £33. I contribute to two of the family dogs’ pet insurance. They live at my parents’ house and I just like to help out a little.
Paying off Debt – This forms just over 42% of my income for this month. Which admittedly is quite high even for me! This is a culmination of a series of emergencies I’ve had to pay for in the last few weeks. From next month I’ll be totally debt free.
September Goals:
- Walk at least 5,000 steps a day, with 2 of those days being over 10,000. (Let’s start small!)
- Lose five pounds – I failed at the losing weight last month so I’m striving to try better!
- Get my eyes checked – I keep forgetting to go to the optician’s for my yearly check up and I’ve noticed recently that with the increase in computer usage, my eyes seem to not be focusing as quick.
- Clearing my debt so I can start putting money towards a house deposit
- Achieving my professional goal this month of organising staff and completing all my paperwork.
So that’s it for this month. My next post will be a little more weight loss related (kind of!) and I’ll be doing a health update in the next couple of weeks after my check up appointment. Let me know what your goals are for this month!
Until next time.. x
