October seems to have whizzed by in a flash. I’m not entirely sure where the month went?! It also has been a much more spend-y month for us, which is frustrating. Mostly things that were necessary (hello car tax) but even so. After the success of September, it’s slightly bitter sweet!
We had a couple of family events on during October. My cousin got married at the start of the month so we travelled to Manchester for the weekend. It was lovely to catch up with various family members and Frugal Baby had a great time! The only sad thing was that the reception was in a teepee and it was torrential rain for most of the afternoon. The gardens of the place where it was were lovely, but couldn’t be enjoyed to their full potential. Still, a lovely day 🙂
Then, it was my Grandpa’s 90th birthday at the end of the month. We travelled to see him and some other family members for a little celebration at his home. Again, it was such a lovely family occasion; we live all over the country so it’s nice to be able to see them sometimes, at times like this.
The other exciting thing to happen in October was that I launched my first online course! It’s called Reduce Your Food Spend and is all about meal planning and reducing your food waste so that you can spend money 🙂 You can see all about it in this post 🙂
Other than that, it has been fairly quiet for us. Nothing major happening anyway! We have got quite a few Christmas presents sorted, plus most of the December birthdays that happen within our family. I’m glad we’ve got our shopping started, as I do want to get everything sorted by the beginning of December, if possible.
My Financial aims for October were:
– Have 18 No Spend Days (NSDs)
– Overpay our mortgage by £50
– Put £800 into savings
After September being so positive in terms of meeting my aims, I started off the month feeling cautiously optimistic about hitting them in October too. Then, real life struck! I have managed 15 NSDs which is better than it has been, but not at target! Those little spends creeping in again… Overpaying is taking a backseat but it is nice to see our mortgage balance go down every month. I have overpaid £25.38 this month, so less than I aimed for. Finally, I transferred £683.71 into savings. So I haven’t met any of my aims for the month! Not great, I’ll be honest 🙁
My Personal Aims For October were:
– get the newborn baby clothes down from the loft
– finish the book I’m reading
– book a pregnancy massage
We have got all of the newborn clothes down from the loft. I need to wash them and go through them all, but just looking at them has bought back some lovely memories of when Frugal Baby #1 was born. We had quite a tough start with him, with two hospital readmissions in the first month, but there are some lovely memories mixed in there with that. It is definitely seeming more and more real as the time gets closer! I’ve actually stopped reading the book I mentioned. I normally persevere with a book but I just haven’t been enjoying it and not reading at all, to avoid it! Which seems daft. So, I’ve actually decided not to try and finish it instead and take it back to the library. Lastly, I totally forgot about the pregnancy massage! I would love one, so I need to ring up and book one asap.
The top 3 posts on The Frugal Cottage during October were:
How has October been for you? What has been the best thing that’s happened to you this month?
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“Not great, I’ll be honest :(” – turn it around, you’re ahead of the game for Christmas, you’ve overpaid your mortgage and you’ve put a decent amount of money into savings! Killing it!
Thank you!
Sounds like a great October, indeed! This month has gone by wayyy too quickly for my liking. It was good, though. I went to FinCon last week and work has been super busy, so I can’t wait for a slow day to recover.