So September really did fly by – particularly with a 2 week holiday in there, and some colleagues on holiday making the day job busy, I really couldn’t tell you much of what happened!
I’ve had to do a little “jiggery pokery” this month, but I will explain as I go through.
Income
Ok, so for the first time this tax year, I have had two months in a row with the same income from my salary, and no new letters from Mr. Taxman – woohoo! I have also added in two months of income from my other half’s ISA – pulling forward what would normally be used for October to help cover some of the extra from holidays, All in all makes a bit of a higher monthly income, for which I will suffer a little in October.
Expenses
| Item | Notes | Amount |
| Things I choose not to avoid* | Mortgage, Insurance, shared bills etc. – yes, we could move somewhere cheaper, not have insurance, reduce our bills a bit and so on, but we are where we are. | 29% |
| Groceries | All the food and other stuff needed for home | 3% |
| Alcohol for home | Home alcohol consumption only | 0% |
| Bicycles / Car related | Any costs related to either the bikes or the car | 0% |
| Alcohol Out | Generally, its the pub…. | 0% |
| Eating Out | I include purchased lunches in this as well as meals out etc. | 1% |
| Other | My catch all for anything I may have missed…. | 13% |
| Holidays | Any spending related to holidays, flights etc. | 10% |
| Savings | Anything left over! This includes money into ISAs, mortgage payments and non relief pension contributions. My company pension comes out before it hits my bank account so isn’t included, nor do I include the “top up” of money when my money goes into my personal pension (i.e. I put in £100, I register it as £100, not the £125 that gets credited in my pension) | 44% |
* This covers a number of things that I would class as essential for me. Yes, I could move to somewhere cheaper to reduce the mortgage (which in turn would reduce the insurance I have to pay), yes I could reduce my bills by switching energy supplier etc. but it comes down to what I am happy with. There are a few other things in there that are classified as essential that others may object, and so I have just lumped it into there. This has reduced as our mortgage has been redone, and the difference being used to overpay the mortgage, but is still counted by me as savings
Holidays – you may wonder why that isn’t a higher number, but our monthly savings into the holiday fund really did “save our bacon” – without it my savings rate would be close to zero. In addition, from our remortgage we got a refund which also helped towards paying for the holiday.
Other – also high this month for a variety of reasons (some car and other item repairs needed which were unplanned) – not ideal but shows I can cope with some strains on the finance.
All in all what felt like a very painful and spendy month – but I have taken the hit this month for everything, so next month I should balance back to normality for the first time since the end of last year! I have still had to keep dipping into my cash reserves to make sure my ISA keeps building up and this does worry me, as I need to change that!
How was your September?
Remember: This Friday (19th October), there is a FI London meetup in The Old Bank of England from 17:30
FIREin' London 