Summary
Welcome to our January spending post! Our total spend for the month was £2,049.
It seemed like 2020 would never end, but we finally made it to 2021! Fingers crossed for a more positive, normal year.
Our total this month is slightly over our £2,000 target, but we bought a few things in the January sales which we’ve been meaning to buy for a long time. We also booked another few bits for the wedding. See below for details on all of 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 | £951 | See below |
| Food | £349 | See below |
| Transport | £0 | See below |
| Entertainment/misc | £749 | See below |
| Total | £2,049 |
We break each of these categories down in the following sections, giving detail for any large expenses.
Housing
The housing category consists of our mortgage payment, overpayments, bills, insurance, DIY costs etc.
Our January spending was fairly standard in the housing category.
| Category | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Mortgage | £415 | |
| Overpayment | £335 | |
| Bills | £66 | Gas, electricity & water. |
| Council Tax | £105 | |
| Internet | £30 | |
| Total | £951 |
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
Our January spending on food was £349. As explained previously, this includes everything on our supermarket shop receipts for the month.
Transport
Another zero transport month!
| Category | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Fuel | £0 | |
| Total | £0 |
Entertainment/Misc
A few big spends this month. We bought our Christmas present to each other in the sales! Miss Way also paid for her wedding dress and we paid a deposit for some food. We’ll go into more detail on the wedding expenses in the section below.
| Category | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Phone Bills | £14 | |
| TV License | £13 | |
| Lottery | £10 | |
| Hot Water Bottle | £15 | |
| Kindle Book | £1 | |
| Presents | £243 | |
| Wedding Dress | £350 | See below |
| Wedding Food | £52 | See below |
| Nappies | £16 | See below |
| Baby Carrying Sling | £35 | See below |
| Total | £749 |
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
Another good month for the wedding planning. We really need to get organised in case we can go ahead this July. This month we paid for Miss Way’s dress and also some food.
| Category | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 'Save the Date' Cards | £26 | |
| Postage | £22 | |
| Registrar | £100 | Deposit paid. £525 more due before wedding. |
| Photographer | £238 | Deposit paid. More due before wedding depending on package. |
| Band | £100 | Deposit paid. £700 more due before wedding. |
| Cards | £10 | |
| Evening Food | £246 | Deposit paid. £983 more due before wedding. |
| Dress | £350 | See below |
| Food | £52 | See below |
| Total | £1,144 |
Dress
A big milestone! It has been really hard to find a dress during Covid but Miss Way finally managed to get an appointment at a shop (before the latest national lockdown) and found a dress she loved. It’s a bit more expensive than we intended, but was a good deal. It was heavily reduced due to some damage to £350. It will need some work doing to make it presentable so the total will come to £738.
Food
We’re having afternoon tea after our ceremony. On our walks recently we have found a local café we like and they cater for all of the allergies we need. We paid the deposit and it will be £206 in total.
Baby Costs
We recently posted our full 6 month spending on Baby Way!
A couple of additions this month can be found below.
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 | |
| Cot | £80 | |
| Nappies | £100 | Second hand reusable nappies |
| Pram | £0 | Free!! |
| Baby Book | £9 | |
| Baby Scan Photo | £5 | |
| Baby Bath | £5 | |
| Yoga | £21 | |
| Reusable Post-partum Pads | £25 | |
| Baby Bed Sheets | £30 | |
| Second Hand Baby Sleeping Bags | £20 | |
| Yoga/Birthing Ball | £13 | |
| Second Hand Baby Clothes | £18 | |
| Breastfeeding Cream | £8 | |
| Breastfeeding Bras | £3 | |
| Perineal Ice Packs | £19 | |
| Baby/Mum Vitamins | £53 | |
| Baby Thank You Cards | £26 | |
| Boots | £6 | |
| Baby Related Tablets | £41 | |
| Music Classes | £12 | |
| Birth Certificates | £22 | |
| Baby Carrier | £11 | |
| Baby Clothes | £7 | |
| Baby Book | £11 | |
| Music Classes | £24 | |
| Breastfeeding Cream | £9 | |
| Wean in 15 Book | £7 | |
| Baby Cups | £14 | |
| Sing & Sign Music Class | £80 | |
| Baby Class | £64 | |
| Finger Puppets | £9 | |
| Cheeky Wipes | £15 | |
| Weaning Bibs | £32 | |
| Nappies | £16 | See below |
| Baby Carrying Sling | £35 | See below |
| Total | £938 |
Nappies
This month we bought more bigger size wraps for our overnight cloth nappies. He had out-grown the others and kept getting leaks! This has solved the problem for now!
Baby Carrying Sling
We also bought a new sling. We carry Baby Way all the time. So far we’ve used a stretchy wrap but he’s a bit heavy now. We bought a woven wrap second hand from Facebook Marketplace. We’ll use it loads so it was a pretty good deal – they’re really expensive new!
That’s All for Now, Folks!
See you next month!
Previous Posts
Monthly Spending – December 2020