Can we build a great family life for £2,500 a month?
July spending: £5,518
£3,018 over our £2,500 target
Well… July certainly didn’t help us get there.
We spent £5,518 this month – more than double our £2,500 target. And unlike some months where the overspending creeps up through lots of little purchases, July had one very obvious culprit: we spent £2,445 on shutters for the front windows of our house.
So, was it a terrible month for our spending?
Not necessarily.
Here’s where the money went, and why we’re actually pretty comfortable with some of the decisions behind it.
July at a glance
| July 2026 | |
|---|---|
| Our target | £2,500 |
| Actual spending | £5,518 |
| Over/under target | £3,018 |
Where did the money go?
| Category | Amount |
|---|---|
| Housing | £3,461 |
| Food | £995 |
| Transport | £294 |
| Fun & everything else | £768 |
| Total | £5,518 |
So we’re £3,018 over our £2,500 target.
That’s obviously a long way from where we’d like to be.
But this is exactly why we track our spending rather than simply trying to hit an arbitrary number every month. Sometimes spending more is a conscious decision that makes sense for our family.
And sometimes… it’s a parking fine.
Housing – £3,461
Housing was by far our biggest expense in July, and there’s a very simple reason why.
We finally decided to install shutters on the front windows of our house, costing £2,445.
We’ve been considering doing this for a while, and eventually decided to pull the trigger.
There were a few reasons behind the decision:
- Significantly reducing the light coming into our bedrooms
- Improving security, particularly with our upcoming Southeast Asia trip
- Reducing heat loss during the winter
It’s a big chunk of money, and it’s obviously the main reason July’s spending looks so high.
But this is an important distinction for us.
We’re not trying to spend as little as humanly possible. We’re trying to spend less while still having a life we enjoy.
Sometimes that means deliberately spending a few thousand pounds on something that should improve our home for years to come.
Here’s the full breakdown:
| Category | Amount |
|---|---|
| Gas & Electric | £121 |
| Water | £70 |
| Council Tax | £207 |
| Internet | £30 |
| Climbing Wall | £588 |
| Shutters | £2,445 |
| Total | £3,461 |
We also continue to be very happy with Octopus Energy. Our energy comes from 100% renewable sources, which is a great bonus.
[Octopus referral link] – if you decide to switch, we both get £50.
Food – £995
Food came in at £995 for July.
This includes everything from our supermarket shopping receipts throughout the month.
It’s a fairly straightforward category this month, without any particularly unusual purchases to explain.
That said, £995 is still a significant amount of money, particularly when our overall target is £2,500 for everything.
Food is one of the areas we’ll continue to keep an eye on as we work out what a realistic long-term level of spending looks like for our family.
Transport – £294
Transport was relatively normal this month.
Fuel and trains made up most of the spending, although there was one completely avoidable addition:
A £40 parking fine.
Yep.
A silly mistake that cost us £40 and gave us absolutely nothing in return.
Not exactly the kind of spending we like to see.
| Category | Amount |
|---|---|
| Fuel | £131 |
| Train | £123 |
| Parking Fine | £40 |
| Total | £294 |
The good news is that, even with the fine, transport was still a relatively small part of our overall spending.
Fun & everything else – £768
Our final category came to £768.
This is the category that contains a lot of the spending that makes up our actual family life – eating out, activities, presents, camping and the various smaller costs that crop up during the month.
| Category | Amount |
|---|---|
| Phone Bills | £16 |
| Eating Out | £240 |
| Presents | £186 |
| Activities | £114 |
| Clothes & Shoes | £50 |
| Dental | £46 |
| Camping | £77 |
| Hair Cuts | £20 |
| School Photo | £19 |
| Total | £768 |
One change we’ve made recently is our mobile network.
We also recently switched our mobile network to Lebara. Our SIM-only deals are really cheap and the service has been great.
[Lebara referral link] if you’d like to give them a try.
So… how did we do?
On the face of it, £5,518 is a pretty terrible result against a £2,500 target.
But looking beyond the headline number gives a slightly different picture.
The good
We made a deliberate decision on the biggest expense.
The £2,445 shutters weren’t an accidental overspend. We’ve been considering them for some time, and there are clear reasons why we wanted them.
Our transport spending was relatively normal.
Aside from the £40 parking fine, there wasn’t anything particularly unusual here.
We’re still tracking everything.
That’s important to us. The point of this challenge isn’t to pretend that every month will be perfect. It’s to understand where our money is actually going and make conscious decisions about it.
The not-so-good
We were £3,018 over our £2,500 target.
There’s no getting around that.
And while the shutters explain a huge proportion of the overspend, the rest of the month’s spending still adds up.
The £40 parking fine was also money that could quite easily have stayed in our pockets.
The £2,500 Challenge
Our long-term aim remains the same:
Can we build a great family life for £2,500 a month?
We’re not there yet.
In fact, July was nowhere close.
We initially thought we’d be able to get our spending considerably lower, but we’ve been surprised by how much the cost of almost everything has increased since we returned to the UK in 2023.
For context, the average UK household spends around £2,700 a month, so our aim is to eventually get our spending below that level – while still maintaining the kind of family life we enjoy.
That’s the balance we’re trying to find.
Spend less. Live well. Keep moving towards FIRE.
What we’ll be watching next month
July’s unusually high spending was largely driven by one big purchase.
The challenge now is to see what happens when we don’t have a £2,445 home improvement sitting in the middle of the month’s accounts.
We’ll keep tracking everything and see whether we can bring things back towards our £2,500 target.
And, ideally, avoid any more parking fines.