Summary
Welcome to our March spending post! Our total spend for the month was £2,768.
Another month ticks by. As things start to return slowly towards normal, we at least have a few things to look forward to.
We’re quite a long way over our £2,000 target this month, but that was expected. We had a few wedding expenses, as well as spending on Baby Way and ourselves. It was all stuff we’ve been wanting to sort for a long time, but it’s still hard to see such a high total!
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 | £950 | See below |
| Food | £381 | See below |
| Transport | £0 | See below |
| Entertainment/misc | £1,437 | See below |
| Total | £2,768 |
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 March spending was fairly standard in the housing category.
| Category | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Mortgage | £415 | |
| Overpayment | £335 | |
| Bills | £66 | Gas, electricity & water. |
| Council Tax | £105 | |
| Internet | £25 | |
| DIY | £4 | New light switch! |
| Total | £950 |
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 March spending on food was £381. As explained previously, this includes everything on our supermarket shop receipts for the month.
This month was our first full month of receiving a weekly veg box and milk service. We’ve been toying with the idea for a while and finally gave it a go. We’re hoping it will eventually reduce our overall costs due to eating more veg, but that’s not the main driver. It’s plastic free which is a huge advantage for us. We were sick of buying veg from Aldi which is all packaged in plastic which can’t even be recycled. The milk we now get is in glass bottles too.
We also managed to get a HelloFresh box worth nearly £40 for £3 (delivery fee)! That covered 5 evening meals for 2 people, most of which we now have in the freezer on standby.
We were fairly impressed overall with HelloFresh. It’s not cheap, but if you can get an offer, it works out quite well. The meals are really tasty, big portion sizes and quick and easy to cook.
Downsides were the amount of packaging and the price.
If you want to give it a go, we have a code for £20 off your first order. We would get £20 credit too. The code is HS-AMBKKKJ63 – let us know if you give it a go!
Transport
Another zero transport month!
| Category | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Fuel | £0 | |
| Total | £0 |
Entertainment/Misc
This was a really bad month for us on misc spending! We bought quite a few big items such as a new bed, new phone, as well as a few wedding bits and bobs. March spending on Baby Way was also high. All of this combined to make a painful month, well above our target!
| Category | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Phone Bills | £15 | |
| TV License | £13 | |
| Lottery | £8 | |
| Eating Out | £21 | |
| Presents | £37 | |
| Tennis Club Membership | £110 | Annual renewal |
| New Bed | £466 | Day bed for attic – for visitors/sleeping separately |
| Bedding | £14 | |
| Clothes | £18 | |
| Bike Pump | £20 | |
| New Phone | £130 | Miss Way got a new handset! Motorola G8 Power. |
| Wedding Clothes | £161 | See below |
| Wedding Table Cloths | £150 | See below |
| Baby Stair Gates | £27 | See below |
| Running Buggy | £150 | See below |
| Baby Clothes | £17 | See below |
| Baby Sing & Sign Classes | £80 | See below |
| Total | £1,437 |
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
We’re under 4 months away now. Fingers crossed it all goes ahead.
Unfortunately our ceilidh band pulled out this month. They weren’t comfortable doing a ceilidh in July so we have had to find a new band. We’ll leave the deposit in this table for now as we’ll soon be paying the same to the new band. The new one is £100 so £900 total. Frustrating, but we’re sure it will still be fun.
| 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 | Deposit paid. £388 more due before wedding. |
| Food | £52 | Deposit paid. £154 more due before wedding. |
| Returns Postage | £14 | |
| Shoes | £84 | |
| Clothes | £68 | |
| Bridesmaid Dress | £12 | |
| Crockery | £535 | |
| Clothes | £161 | See below |
| Table Cloths | £150 | See below |
| Total | £2,168 |
Clothes
More clothing purchases this month including ties for the groom and best man, bow ties for the page boys, chinos for the best man etc.
Table Cloths
Another item we ended up buying instead of hiring. We got table cloths from Ikea for £5 each and should be able to sell them for a decent amount afterwards. They would have cost almost the same to hire so it was the obvious choice.
Baby Costs
This month we bought a running buggy! Miss Way has wanted one for a while and finally spotted one close enough to collect.
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! We’re currently 9 months in!
| 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 | |
| Baby Carrying Sling | £35 | |
| Cream/Tablets | £15 | |
| Stair Gates | £27 | See below |
| Running Buggy | £150 | See below |
| Clothes | £17 | See below |
| Sign & Sign Classes | £80 | See below |
| Total | £1,227 |
Stair Gates
Baby Way is now very mobile. We needed some stair gates so we could be elsewhere and know he’s not going to escape! We managed to use a voucher to reduce the cost a lot.
Running Buggy
Miss Way is really missing her running. A running buggy should allow her to go out without having to worry about Baby Way being OK. They’re really expensive new, so we got one second hand. It’s great so far!
Clothes
Baby Way has outgrown most of his clothes so we bought a bundle off Facebook Marketplace. Unfortunately they lied about it being a smoke free home and they absolutely stank. We managed to get the smell out after several washes though!
Sing & Sign Classes
We absolutely loved the online version of this we did recently, so Miss Way has booked to do the in person version now it’s allowed. The payment was for a term of classes.
That’s All for Now, Folks!
See you next month!
Previous Posts
Monthly Spending – February 2021