Summary
Welcome to our first 2020 spending post! Our January spending was quite good, totalling £1,789. We’re aiming to stay below £2,000 on average throughout 2020 which should be achievable if we carry on like this!
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 | £928 | See below |
| Food | £232 | See below |
| Transport | £183 | See below |
| Entertainment/misc | £446 | See below |
| Total | £1,789 |
We break each of these categories down in the following sections, giving detail for any large expenses.
On the recommendation of Freedom to Adventure on Reddit, we’ve also created a graph showing our monthly spending over the last few months. This gives a quick comparison of how we’ve done without having to flick through all of our previous posts.
As you can see, we had a couple of big spikes within 2019 due to our Africa trip and a new car! We’re hoping to see less extreme months in 2020….
Housing
The housing category consists of our mortgage payment, overpayments, bills, insurance, DIY costs etc.
A typical month with just the usual bills to pay!
| Category | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Mortgage | £467 | |
| Overpayment | £283 | |
| Bills | £66 | Gas & electricity. Our water bill is split over 8 months so no bill this month! |
| Council Tax | £101 | |
| Internet | £11 | |
| Total | £928 |
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.
Food
We spent £232 on food this month. As explained previously, this includes everything on our supermarket shop receipts for the month.
This was quite a cheap month as we used up some frozen Christmas leftovers. We’re also looking to reduce our food costs to offset some of our recent excesses. So far so good!
Transport
Higher fuel costs than we would like due to post Christmas social travels, but a nice low total!
| Category | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Fuel | £172 | |
| Trains | £11 | |
| Total | £183 |
Entertainment/Misc
This was a very standard month in this category, despite the baby costs!
| Category | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Phone Bills | £14 | |
| TV License | £13 | |
| Lottery | £8 | |
| Sports Team Costs | £10 | Match fees, floodlights, equipment etc |
| Presents | £20 | |
| Clothes | £35 | |
| Charity | £41 | RED January |
| Antenatal Classes | £80 | See below |
| Nappies | £100 | See below |
| Cot | £80 | See below |
| Christmas Tree Recycling | £2 | |
| Eating Out/Cafes | £43 | |
| Total | £446 |
Running Totals
There are a few big things going on in our lives at the minute. We wanted to add this section to the end of our Monthly Spending posts to keep track of our total spending on both the wedding and Baby Way.
To be honest this is as much for our own interest/records as it is for our readers!
While these aren’t all spending items from this month, we think it’s useful to keep ‘running totals’ for these longer term categories.
Wedding
No extra wedding costs this month but we do need to get round to sending some more save the dates. We also need to plan as much as possible before Baby Way turns our lives upside down!
Total to date:
| Category | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 'Save the Date' Cards | £26 | |
| Postage | £22 | |
| Registrar | £100 | Deposit paid. £525 more due before wedding. |
| Total | £183 |
Baby Costs
As we start to prepare for Baby Way it feels right to also include a breakdown of these costs here.
All of our baby-related spending will appear in Entertainment/Misc for now, but we’ll also track it separately here. We’re convinced we can spend significantly less than our peers so it’ll be interesting to see how we get on!
| Category | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Pregnancy Vitamin Tablets | £8 | |
| Antenatal Class | £80 | Daisy Foundation 1 day course |
| Cot | £80 | From Aldi! |
| Nappies | £100 | Second hand reusable nappies |
| Pram | £0 | Free!! |
| Total | £268 |
Antenatal Classes
We decided to book a 1 day antenatal class with the Daisy Foundation. Our aim was to keep the cost down, while still doing some form of class to meet other new parents as a friendship/support network. This was our compromise, as longer courses get very expensive (especially with NCT!).
Cots
Having researched cots and decided we wanted a bedside cot, Aldi had a well-timed baby event. Their bedside cot was £80, which was cheaper than buying a second hand ‘branded’ one, with a new mattress and sheets etc. We decided to take the plunge!
Nappies
For more info on the nappies, keep your eyes open for a post. There’s far too much info to put in here!
Pram
We weren’t going to buy a pram because we want to mostly baby-carry, particularly in the early weeks and months.
When Mr Way’s parents offered us his old pram we told them this plan. Eventually, we decided to accept their kind offer. Not only does it give us an option if we need to push Baby Way somewhere, but the top of the pram can also be used as a bed for Baby Way. This means we can have the cot upstairs and this pram basket downstairs for daytime naps.
The fact it was free is awesome and it actually looks really good. But the most special thing is knowing that it once carried a mini Mr Way!
See you next month.
Previous Posts
Monthly Spending – December 2019