I wish it would warm up!! Come on weather, its May, we should be getting sunshine and warmth by now. Especially for these few weeks when we can only sit outside the cafes and restaurants! Of course it hasn’t stopped me having more meals out, sat in the freezing cold here!
Saving for my Children’s Future
I wrote an article in collaboration with Beanstalk this week and shared on Instagram how I have saved £100 in fees by switching my Child Trust Funds over from Foresters to Beanstalk Junior ISA’s. The fees go from 1.5% to 0.5%. I am really happy with this saving for my children’s future and am happy that my children will have more money in their Junior ISA’s when they can access them aged 18.
You can read the blog post here.
The Elusive Predicament for a Parent – Work Life Balance
This week Bec and I talked about this subject in episode 3 of our podcast – Mrs Mummypenny Talks with Ridley Writes. It’s a constant struggle for so many to get any sort of balance between family time, work time, self time and we have had much experience of this throughout our mother hood years. We share our tips including a reading hour that Bec has implemented just before bed-time. I love it. Download the podcast here.
Or watch us on YouTube!
Spending for the Last Week of April
As you might remember I had already overspent my April budget by last week so I was meaning to be careful this week and not go too mad. I did okay, £278 was spent. But again a big chunk was on food. I am just so happy to be able to eat at restaurants again and seeing friends in a different environment than the long walks we have been used to for the past few months.
Eating Out is High Spending Again
Again I spent £127 on eating out, with £80 spent on roast dinner, cocktails and wine on bank holiday sunday. It was amazing, a really lovely roast beef lunch.
I also had a burger at my local the Lytton with Maz on Thursday night, spending £25, a costa lunch and deliveroo. But all this eating out meant that I spent very little on groceries, just £33. This meant a total spend of £161 out of my total weekly spend of £278 on food. Whoops.
Some Bills Hit at end of Month
I’m not sure how I set this up, as I like to have all my bills leave my account on the 1st of the month, but these two have slipped to the end of the month. There was a bed repayment of £86, I am so near to paying this off. There are two payments left, then I will have an extra £86 every month. I bought a bed and mattress with 12 interest free payments last summer from John Lewis. I am absolutely not opposed to interest free payment schemes. Last summer I wanted to conserve as much cash as possible when everything was so much more uncertain. but it will be nice when it ends.
I also spent £6 on a very cheap life insurance policy that I took out when I was 25. The younger you are the cheaper a life insurance policy is. This policy will pay out £108k on death, the policy ends when I am 50 as it was linked to the mortgage I took out aged 25.
Life insurance doesn’t cost too much and is a very reassuring product to have (I have two policies to cover my entire mortgage by the way). I know that the house will be fully paid off if I die. If you want to find out your life insurance options from an independent and very good broker fill in your details on this Lifesearch form and they will give you a call. You will also get £25/£50 cash back as a thank you for coming from my website, I also get the same referral payment. This in no way affects your premium. If you enquire, thank you!
A few other smaller costs and refunds
I had a refund from a school trip cancelled due to covid and got £50 back. Also a £56 refund from a hockey stock purchased earlier in April that we no longer needed. Always follow up on refunds!
I paid £25 to my cleaner, £35 went into my Plum Auto-savings. I spent some fun money £18 on new earrings and a candle from my favourite Stevenage shop Unikorn. And I spent £5 on a yoga class. Finally there was £20 of toiletries from Superdrug, I love that shop for deals! Oh and a few business expenses, annual subscriptions and travel costing £30.
Total Spend
So yes the total spend for the week was £278, and this means I spent a rather large amount of £3450 for the month of April. The over spend of £450 is mainly made up of eating out and a few exceptional costs of clothing purchases for me and the boys. I think I need to up my eating out budget for the next few months as I really don’t want to restrict myself now we have this new freedom.
Thanks for reading!! Will May be a lower spending month? Hopefully….
