The Cost of Living: June 2017

June had five Fridays in it, and when I get paid, it's on Friday so that may skew this month's numbers a bit.  Anyway, here they are.
Rent: £350 Utilities: £215.21     Phone: £62.12 (more than I normally pay per month, as I had to use some extra data over in Canada).     Broadband: £19.50     Council tax: £82.00     Google drive: £7.99     Prescription: £8.60     Electric: £35.00 Food and drink: £110.40 Passport renewal: £72.50 Alcohol:  £54.05 Non-work travel: £40.10 One hour in a flotation tank: £35.00 Entertainment: £12.15 Takeaways: £31.10 Pets: £15.47 Postage: £13.15 Coffee:  £12.35 Gardening: £9.75 Laundry: £2.89 Groceries (non food): £2.25 TOTAL: £976.37 INCOME: £1,190.32 Month balance: +£213.95 Hours worked: 120

Lots of things to say here:

First, it never ceases to amaze me how much I seem to spend on food.  It's usually only a few quid a day, or seems like it, yet when it comes to the end of the month... Over £100 again.  This feels excessive, but perhaps it isn't.

Definitely excessive is the £85.15 spent on alcohol and takeaways.  I'll make July a 'dry' month, I think.  I know I bought at least one of those takeaways when I was drunk.

It was satisfying to be able to keep below £35 on electricity expenses, a goal I set myself last month.  I'm impressed by the genuine efforts electricity companies are making to help us reduce (or at least become aware of) our consumption.  E.on for instance, shows you graphs by which you can compare your electricity use month to month, and I recently received a letter off them inviting me to have a "smart meter" installed, an offer I intend to take them up on if it works out cheaper.  For this month anyway, I'll top up £32 and try and stick within that.  This morning as I left the house there was still about £3 left on the meter.

Passport renewal obviously counts as a 'one off' expense, as it's good again now for another ten years.  In fact, I needn't have done it so soon, as I've decided not to go to the Ecovillage Conference in Sweden, much as I would possibly enjoy it.  Travel, I am reliably informed, is overrated, and narrows the mind.  There are other things to say about this, but that's for another post.

An average of 30 hours a week is far, far too much work.  That's getting on for 'full time'.  Not acceptable.  Still, it put me back in the black, and so here is my plan for July:

1.  Start saving again.  Any 'profit' at the end of the month will go back into the ISA I drained over the past year or so while working considerably fewer than 30 hours a week.  So that's £213.95.  Possibly I may think of investing this, but for now it can stay there.

2.  No alcohol, no takeaways this month.  No exceptions.  There's £82.50 I could have spent on things that actually bring me lasting joy.  Like growing microgreens.

3.  No preoccupation with budgeting on individual expenses (i.e. food and drink).  Budget instead for the whole month.  Set myself a limit, and stick to that.  If food is over £100 a month, then so be it.  I need to eat.  No doubt I can cut the amount I spend do with a bit more willpower, but no need to obsess over an arbitrarily chosen figure.  What budget to set myself?  Well, how about this:

4.  My total expenses, not including the 'one offs' and things I have now made a conscious decision to abstain from, and things I won't be spending anything on (i.e. pets) were £800.36.  Of this, £568.10 went on rent, utilities and laundry - expenses I can't avoid, living how and where I currently do.  This leaves £232.26.  This will be my total budget for 'non essentials' for the month of July, with a bit knocked off for good measure.  So let's say £220 is my July budget.  Instead of splitting up all my expenses into the multiple categories the Spendee app allows, and which I started using in 'No Buy April', I'll just use 'food and drink', 'utilities' and 'other'.  Keeping a close eye on the 'other' to make sure I don't go over £220 should keep me on track.  There are 31 days in July, so that's an average of £7.09 a day.  That's all I'm allowed to spend.  No messing about.

5.  In and amongst all this, I'm going to make pretty damn sure I work fewer hours, too.  Which is, of course, what this is all about.

******* UPDATE: Some follow up thoughts here.

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