Summary
Welcome to our February spending post! Our total spend for the month was £3,729.
This is a huge jump from our new ‘normal’, because we booked a holiday! We’re in need of a break so excited to be going to Portugal at Easter time. We booked all inclusive to make the trip as relaxing as possible, as it will be our last break before baby 2 arrives in July!
We break our main expenses down into broad categories starting with the big 3; housing, food and transport. Everything else falls into the entertainment category, with any large inclusions explained in detail.
| Category | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Housing | £750 | See below |
| Food | £462 | See below |
| Transport | £179 | See below |
| Entertainment/misc | £2,338 | See below |
| Total | £3,729 |
We break each of these categories down in the following sections, giving detail for any large expenses.
Housing
Our February spending on housing is high. We had an additional gas and electric bill to pay from out time in the flat, as well as buying another piece of furniture.
| Category | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Gas & Electric | £318 | See below |
| Water | £70 | |
| Council Tax | £250 | |
| Internet | £27 | See below |
| Furniture | £85 | |
| Total | £750 |
We continue to be very happy with our energy supplier, Octopus Energy. Our energy is from 100% renewable sources too which is a great bonus. If you are interested, click through this link and you will get £50 and so will we! It can be hard to find a decent energy company but we really do recommend Octopus.
In fact, we recently emailed them with a query and got a response resolving it within 3 minutes!!
Food
Our February spending on food was £462. This includes everything on our supermarket shop receipts for the month.
Transport
Our February spending on transport was quite normal, with not much to report.
| Category | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Fuel | £157 | |
| Bus | £14 | |
| Windscreen Wiper | £8 | |
| Total | £179 |
Entertainment/Misc
Our February spending on misc items is inflated by a few additional purchases.
The main item is a holiday! We booked a week long all inclusive break. We’ve been wanting to get away somewhere warmer, and this is likely to be our last chance before we become a family of 4!
We also booked a hotel for a friend’s wedding, bought a fire pit and various other random items!
| Category | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Phone Bills | £12 | |
| Eating Out | £106 | |
| Fire Pit | £60 | |
| Training Pants | £13 | |
| Hotel | £136 | |
| Holiday | £1,689 | |
| Activities | £109 | |
| Clothes | £44 | |
| TV License | £159 | |
| Nappy Caddies | £10 | |
| Total | £2,338 |
That’s All for Now, Folks!
We’re looking to reduce our spending in pretty much every area as we settle down to life back in the UK. It will be interesting to see how low we can get our costs! We’re buying our house mortgage free, so we thankfully won’t have to worry about the astronomical interest rates.
Considering the average UK household spend is £2,700 we’re aiming to get down significantly below that level – probably more like £1,500-1,750.
See you next month!
Previous Posts
Monthly Spending – January 2024