budget

The Red Briefcase: 2020 spending review

/ Gracie Sunderland / 2 Comments

‘It’s the most… wonderful tiiiime… of the yeeeeaaaar’ <sings>. Hannukah is just finished and we are heading into Christmas, both of which we love. And we’re up to the end of year spending review, which we are *hoping* to love.

2020 has been quite the year, hasn’t it? I am writing this whilst we are in self-isolation (again) and trying to enjoy ourselves without all the usual festive celebrations of friends, family, and going out. It is particularly hard this year since we can’t travel and it’s just the kids and I far from home. In spite of that I know we are in a much, much luckier place than others with a stable income; living in a fantastic country; and in a house big enough to play, work and study in for weeks at a time. At this time of gratitude and miracles, I am definitely counting our blessings. But this post is also about counting our income, outgoings and savings.

It hurts me to share any space with Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak but that red briefcase is the traditional home for the spending review going into the UK parliament. No comments here on that budget. (Photo by TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images)

So what was the plan?

I set my plan for spending and saving back on January 21st, the first blog post here. Below is the actuals and percentages. Overall I spent around £65,000 this year, £15,000, or about one-third more than planned.

Item Monthly Annual Actual % spent
Charity  £              30  £              360  £          830.00 230%
Insurance  £            277  £           3,324  £       3,324.00 100%
Rent and utilities  £         1,500  £         18,000  £     20,098.77 112%
Childcare  £         1,000  £        12,000  £     21,939.86 183%
Groceries  £            300  £           3,600  £       6,160.68 171%
Holidays  £            300  £           3,600  £       1,910.71 53%
Transport   £            300  £           3,600  £       2,723.52 76%
Entertainment  £            200  £           2,400  £          917.20 38%
Eating out  £            175  £           2,100  £       2,006.95 96%
Family       £       2,986.73  
Shopping      £       2,090.63  
TOTAL  £         4,082  £         48,984  £     64,989.04 133%

What the reckoning showed me, once I got over feeling queasy, was as follows:

  • I radically underestimated some areas – I had no budget for shopping (clothes, gifts, personal care), for example. I also hadn’t understood some of the bills needed to be paid in Denmark (hello surprise £ 1,000 utility charge that I thought was part of the water bill!). I also spend 180% of the grocery bill, and whilst some of this is just poor planning and shopping, it is also clear that costs here are much much more than the UK given that I still shop at LIDL.
  • Whilst COVID didn’t impact my income, it meant that there were significant spends on unplanned areas such as holiday childcare when plans to have my parents come and stay (or the kids go to them in the UK) had to be put on ice – I spent 170% of childcare and holiday budgets due to these changes. Some of the grocery spend was also COVID related: at least now I have long-life milk and a lot of pasta and rice in the hold!
  • The uncomfortable truth is that I budgeted without working on a frugal plan meaning that I consistently didn’t hit targets because I have been using the budget as a guide and not as a plan. I added a budget line of ‘family’ then just added in everything which might upset the budget lines elsewhere, but of course the overall overspend is the same.

This budget also doesn’t include – money to savings, pre-tax contributions to health insurance and pensions, or the income and expenditure on my UK property. So what did I save?

Mortgage overpayments £         11,576
 Triodos  £         11,000
Stocks and Shares ISA  £         11,673
Kids savings £           2,976
Pension (SIPP) £           2,900
 TOTAL SAVED / INVESTED £    40,126
Feel better about this bit!

So I spent 61% of my income, and saved 39%. Given the unexpected (or poorly planned) expenditures, I am really happy with that.

Celebrating with our amazing Christmas tree 🙂

Net Worth Snapshot

Confession time – previously I was calculating my net worth at the end of March, since the UK tax year ends April 5th. This means that I have the 6 month change, and the 18 month changes, which is useful but not quite the ‘end of year review’ I had in mind. In any case, here they are. The big additions from the budgets above is the employer contribution to pension.

 Value Dec 2020Value April 2020Value April 2019
 Pensions  £         163,540 £         134,240 £       105,675
 Savings  £           83,287 £           68,500 £         26,000
 House Equity £         343,000 £         323,223 £       304,000
 Emergency Fund  £           10,000 £           15,000 £           3,500
  £         599,827 £         540,963 £        439,175
Changes in net worth

Three of my four pensions are ‘defined benefit’ meaning that increases here come from money paid in to my current work pension (also defined benefit); and money paid in plus changes to investments on my SIPP. Over this time, my house hasn’t increased in value, so any change is mortgage capital paid off. There were a ton of challenges or mistakes this year which I tried hard to put right – I pulled money out of the S&S ISA when I panicked back in March, and put £5,000 back in which has grown again with the shift in the stock market at the end of the year.

Either way this shows an increase in net worth of £68,000 over six months – an average of £10,600 per month, or £154,000 over 18 months, a monthly average increase of £8,500. That is incredible – and I know based partly on having a great salary and a lot of other privileges and benefits like having bought a home at a good time etc. But it’s something to be proud of, and to spur me on to a much tighter-budget in 2021!

How was your 2020?? And how is it making you feel as we head into planning and dreaming for the year ahead? I would love to hear from you!

Photo Credit/ Matthew Hoffman

Great things can happen!

/ Gracie Sunderland

So it’s not a political blog but it’s impossible to live in the world without being effected by what is going on. And if you really care – about other people, about those more vulnerable than yourself, about the planet – then it’s less about being effected and more about playing your role. So like millions of people all over the world today, I feel more hopeful that great things can happen, and full of respect for people who push every day to make the world better for everyone.

In some ways, the path to financial independence feels like a small and pathetic series of tiny actions, compared to the major global events which are shaping the world today. On the other, what is more radical than living consciously, choosing to accept or reject things like mindless consumerism and waste? Choosing instead to build community and support others? And how do the big things happen without the little decisions?

When you’re in the middle of things, it can feel like things are not moving. Example – instead of embracing my lockdown weight, I’ve been working to lose it. Calorie counting now for the past nine weeks and it feels never ending. Shockingly, I still look pretty similar – but looking over the progress I have been losing 1lb per week. Now that’s real results! And it’s good results whilst also leaving space to have days where I Just Can’t Do It and need a beer and a pie. Finding a way that really works for you whilst still converting small progressive wins into long term achievements is crucial to having sticking power.

So my small actions for this week are:

  1. Finalising my September spends and being ready to write them up on the blog next week;
  2. Planning a budget for Christmas / Hannukah and being prepared to stick to it;
  3. Working through some options for housing since this is by far our biggest spend and I think there are other possibilities for 2021 onwards;
  4. Try and lose another 1lb!

What are your plans for this week? Remember – great things can happen!

Getting back in the budget saddle

/ Gracie Sunderland

I missed posting last week, mostly because I was nestled in a shame spiral about my spending – fun! Self reflection is always challenging, for me especially when it’s something I think I am doing well at. I started this blog from the perspective of ‘I am largely sticking to my budget’: ‘I am in a good place and want to get better’: ‘I’ve a five year plan and few doubts.’

O. M. G.

So it’s partly been the habit-trashing of COVID and the change to being without additional help from my family, contact with friends, or regular travel with work. But it’s also been just taking my eye off the ball. I realised last week that I don’t really track my budget any more as I am spending, something which happened when I started using my Danish account instead of my Monzo card which tracks all spend for you against a pre-set budget. Instead I review spending a few weeks after month end, and it becomes an inventory of my stupid.

After some initial reflection last week I concentrated on getting the two gnarly issues sorted from my budget. The first was getting a realistic view of the utilities budgets. In Denmark, there are no price comparison websites and few options when it comes to utilities providers. A proper review of these costs show I spend £405 per month on utilities – almost £5,000 per year, and significantly under what was in my original monthly budget. I also looked at kids clubs and holidays – action there is TBD since the options range from cutting it altogether to reducing it significantly, and this can only be done through more of a lifestyle prioritisation exercise. It will also depend if my parents can help out with holiday childcare again post-COVID – whatever post-COVID looks like…

It was also useful to give myself a break and think about self-talk on these issues. I love Brené Brown and she has some great advice on money and shame. It’s important to note that as a single mum, whilst I can have conversations with others, I am responsible for all the decision making – and praise or blame. And personally I find that the FIRE community can be quite light on failure, sending you back to Dave Ramsay if you get stuck in early stages. However, since shame spirals are characterized by feeling like everything compounds the original feeling, I can also believe this is my perception. With that said, I’m sharing the tips I found most relevant:

  1. Show yourself compassion. Interestingly Harvard Medical School’s paper on self compassion covers a lot of the micro-habits I have been trying to put in place recently – from journaling to meditation. The tips about ‘comforting your body’ also opened up other ideas. As Jen Sincero says, we can treat our bodies like a windsock flailing behind our brains, doing ourselves harm but also missing opportunities to improve and support ourselves in simple ways.
  2. Be courageous. For me undertaking the calculations and spending reviews – then sharing them on this blog, are courageous. To be even more so, I need to start tracking spend during the month to look it in the eye on a regular basis, and be brave enough to stop spending, say no, or course correct.
  3. Celebrate the small wins. This I really struggle with. Some of the small wins are really small, and when they turn into habit I don’t appreciate them anymore. Examples like packing lunches for work, cycling to the office, choosing free weekend activities and so on don’t get noticed. Here I need to create small goals such as no-spend days – or indeed just sticking to the damn budget for things like eating out – and celebrating those.

So – aluta continua! How do you keep going when things aren’t going well?

Image credit: https://alchetron.com/A-luta-continua

Budget Review: August 2020

/ Gracie Sunderland

I already wrote about spending during the summer holidays (June and July) so this post covers August. My plan is to look at September in the coming two weeks, then that ties up quarter three.

It is completely obvious to me that I am behind in my budgeting – that’s one of the reasons why it’s taking me so long to prepare and post my monthly budgets. There is definitely something where the thinking about FIRE and feeling like I am On A Path means that I don’t actually need to do anything else. I wrote at the start of this blog about being Fake Frugal and I am sorry to say that I am definitely still in that place.

I *do* reuse teabags – but I also spend on my kids extra-curricular activities without thinking twice. Image credit: Ray Massey | Getty Images

Looking at my numbers for August, I was justifying all the overspends. Oh – it was my birthday! Oh – it was my best friend’s 40th and a rare peaceful moment during COVID so I flew to the UK. Oh – my daughter made the swimming team so I had to pay the fees. I spent HOW MUCH? Oh dear…

 Monthly Plan Actual
Charity £                   30.00 £                           83.15
Insurance & utilities £                277.00 £                         914.22
Childcare £             1,000.00 £                     1,000.00
Groceries £                300.00 £                         546.92
Holidays £                300.00 £                     1,960.52
Transport  £                300.00 £                         307.71
Entertainment £                200.00 £                           81.91
Eating out £                175.00 £                         328.98
Rent  £             1,500.00 £                  1,500.00
Family  £                         586.67
Personal care  £                         117.53
Shopping  £                           16.57
Clothes  £                           60.50
 TOTAL £                 4,082.00 £                     7,504.68
OH MY DAYS WHAT DID I DO? August spends.

What are the lessons here?

Stay courageous: I almost didn’t share this budget because I spent almost double my already healthy budget. But what’s the point in making it all look easy when it isn’t?

Stay grateful: I wrote last week about gratitude and first off, I am grateful that I have the income where I can do this and not be in debt. But I need to also stay grateful and focused about what else I have planned for my life – early retirement, more time with the kids, and not working a job to pay for things I am only barely aware of.

Work with what is real not what you wish is real: The old phrase ‘champagne tastes, beer budget applies to me, but Denmark costs, UK budget. An example is that I’ve worked really hard on grocery spends – shopping in budget supermarkets, meal planning, cooking from scratch, and going in with a list – but I can’t get it down to my original budget. Whilst I could probably tweak it some more, I don’t think it’s going to be at  £300. I make packed lunches for all of us five days per week, and this saves eating out money but eats into (see what I did there?!) grocery spends. Ditto on utilities – I thought this was based on the real costs but there have been a couple of things which were news to me during our first year. If I am not working to a realistic budget then there is no way I can even try to succeed. So it becomes an exercise in futility.     

Action has to follow intention – regular, conscious action: I have known for a while that I need to spend some time setting up all my spreadsheets so that they are meshed together. Where I have money budgeted monthly but to be spread out over the year (e.g. I pay my car insurance annually but budget monthly) including holidays, I can’t tell at this point if I have stuck to the budget (clue: probably not).

So – on we go. Better to be honest and look it in the eye than write nice posts about intentionality without tackling the basics! As we head into the last quarter of the year, I need to look at the budget again, particularly annual costs and things like putting ceilings on kids’ extracurricular activities. Aluta continua!

So, how are we doing here? May budget and spends

/ Gracie Sunderland

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.

 PlannedMay-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
Planned vs actual spend: May 2020
Game over? Hell no!

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!