Goodbye April! What a strange month it has been. It has gone by so quickly, but not at the same time? I have been at home for over a month now – I haven’t left our house at all – and I cannot remember a time when I have not seen another human being barring my family for SO LONG. It is getting more tough the longer it goes on. I think that’s because we don’t know when things will change? Plus my boys are missing their grandparents and their friends so much. It must seem like a lifetime to them.
In terms of our finances, it has had a positive impact. I suppose that’s some kind of silver lining to all of this. Our variable expenses in our budget – food, petrol, misc., and children – are very different to what they were a a couple of months ago. Our food spend has gone up a lot due to being at home all of the time and eating all meals at home. But, everything else has gone down. We’ve only spent £30 on petrol this month whereas we would normally have spent over £100. That’s because I’m not travelling to work. The misc. budget is somewhat steady – that’s because it’s household/cat things which don’t really change month to month. Then the children’s budget – it hasn’t been touched! It’s still at the same point it was at the start of the month.
My Financial aims for April were:
– Have 20 No Spend Days (NSDs)
– Overpay the mortgage by £185
– Put £700 into savings
NSDs are a tricky one – technically as I’m not leaving the house I shouldn’t be spending at all. However, I have counted every time that my husband spends on food as a spend day. In a normal circumstance, it would be me buying the food shop so it’s just a slight change. I have managed 20 NSDs during April 🙂 Overpayments are back to normal; in fact slightly more than the aim as I just haven’t been spending money in other areas. I have managed to overpay our mortgage by £294.25 which is over £100 more than I aimed for. Happy with this 🙂 We are over target so far for this which is great! I have also put £700 into my investments, as per the plan.Plus, as we had some spare at the end of the month due to not spending I have also added £176.45 to our emergency fund so our total savings for April is £876.45 which is good 🙂 the savings combined with the overpayment is such a big chunk of our take home pay.
My Personal Aims for April were:
– take each day as it comes.
I have done this, I think. We are getting used to our new routine at home and there are some aspects I am really enjoying. Just having the time in a morning and not be rushing around trying to get out of the door. Taking time over things which seem insignificant normally. Getting outside into the garden in an afternoon so that they can run around and burn off some energy. Afternoon baths because they’ve got cold after using water in the garden. Dare I say it, it’s been really nice in some ways.
The top 3 posts on The Frugal Cottage during April were:
How has April been for you? What has been the best thing that has happened to you during the month?
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