Enough of the soul searching – what am I actually spending?
In my mind, lock-down has been a time of spending no money. Certainly you have to be both inventive and patient to hit the normal spending levels, since it has meant either queuing, or ordering things which take a long time to be delivered. I just received a fire bowl for the garden which we ordered in April and which arrived this week, but minus the actual bowl – a two month wait for a totally useless stand…
May was the month we went back to work and school here in Denmark. It was also my daughter’s 7th birthday party and since we weren’t able to have family or friends over, I definitely spoiled her a bit to try and make it more special.
I had ordered not quite as gender stereotyped balloons but this is what we got – she loved them anyway! Flags are traditional in Denmark including outside the house so everyone knows it’s your birthday. Loving the new traditions.
It was also the month I started planning and paying for things to do in the long school holidays. Since we can’t travel back to the UK I had to cancel long made plans – thankfully being able to either move it all to next year or get refunds – but then think about what we are actually going to *do* for the next two months.
So here’s what we spent. And it reminds me why I think of myself as being ‘fake frugal’. There are no ridiculous purchases in here, nothing really out of the way or extravagant (or that felt like it, at least). And yet I still managed to overspend by almost £ 1,000.00.
| Planned | May-20 | |
| Charity | £ 30.00 | £150.00 |
| Insurance | £ 277.00 | £277.00 |
| Rent and utilities | £ 1,500.00 | £1,500.00 |
| Childcare | £ 1,000.00 | £1,000.00 |
| Groceries | £ 300.00 | £793.36 |
| Holidays | £ 300.00 | £858.84 |
| Transport | £ 300.00 | £36.00 |
| Entertainment | £ 200.00 | £247.03 |
| Eating out | £ 175.00 | £57.37 |
| TOTAL | £ 4,082.00 | £4,919.60 |
So what went well? Bills, childcare, insurances all stayed the same. I upped our charity giving all throughout lock-down because things are so tough right now for so many people (to the Single Aid Mamas crowd fund, an amazing group of other single mums in the same line of work that I am in, a number of whom lost their income during this period: to Age UK given that older people are having a hard time: and to the Trussell Trust who are supporting food banks across the UK).
The bulk of the extra spend was on groceries. Whilst it does feel as though food is getting more expensive, this is also down to eating every meal at home (and the related decrease in eating out budget). It is also because like lots of people I have been really into cooking as something fun to do during the lockdown. As a wannabe frugaleer, I normally cook from scratch 5 nights a week, and make packed lunches. But we have really tried new things, got into baking, and also continued to keep a healthy level of food stocked up in the house in case the quarantine gets strict again.
But this was something of a wake up call. Just because I feel like we’re not doing much, or spending much, keeping track of the numbers is the only way to be sure. In May, I did manage to put £ 800 into my savings, £250 into the children’s accounts, and make a £ 2,000 mortgage over-payment. So whilst it wasn’t a great month, it still worked out.
Aluta continua!
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