Well, what a strange month March turned out to be. When I set my monthly aims at the start of the month, I genuinely had no idea that we would be in this scenario at the end. March has certainly thrown up some surprises! And at this uncertain time, a lot of worry and discomfort. What’s more, I am now self-isolating at home so I just at our house, within the four ways and the garden. With our two children – aged four and two – which is even stranger. I mean, it just wasn’t supposed to be this way! I uploaded a video about how I feel about the current situation as it’s easier to express through talking.
In terms of our finances, it has had a positive impact. Can that be a slight silver lining in March? Though it has made me very much more aware that having £1,000 in an emergency fund is not enough. Great as a starting point, but nowhere near enough to be a comfort. If anything did happen to our jobs, £1,000 wouldn’t even cover one month of our basic expenses. So it has made me re-evaluate in terms of what I want our emergency fund to be at eventually. Not saying it’s going to be a quick fix to get there, but I am diverting more of our savings into that. Plus I’m also not looking at my stocks and shares ISA; I don’t intend to sell so there’s not really much point. I also don’t have buckets of spare cash to invest when prices are down, so I’m just going to leave it alone for now.
My Financial aims for March were:
– Have 20 No Spend Days (NSDs)
– Overpay the mortgage by £185
– Put £700 into savings
The NSDs were going so well! But, we have had to go food shopping more regularly the past two weeks as it’s been a real struggle to get certain items. I have counted those as spend days which wouldn’t normally have happened. I don’t see this changing any time soon! I have managed 19 NSDs during March so almost at my target 🙂 the previous two months I have overpaid on our mortgage far more than our aim for the month so I have scaled this back during March so that I could send the money to our emergency fund instead. So, I have overpaid £64.67 to our mortgage which is substantially lower than the aim. However, we are still on track for this for the year so I’m not too worried. I have also put £700 into my investments, as per the plan. Not saying it’s going to plan at the moment, but I’m trying to stick to it!
My Personal Aims for March were:
– take it easy
– plan out YouTube content for the month
– be organised!
Let’s just say everything has gone out of the window this month.
The top 3 posts on The Frugal Cottage during March were:
How has March been for you? What has been the best thing that has happened to you during the month?
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