After the national budget yesterday I thought that it would be a good idea to go and have a look at our annual budget and see how we are getting along.
At present we are overspent in the Holiday category as we bought MasterShoestring's air ticket earlier on in the year. This and his Geography trip will eat up all the annual holiday budget so if we want to go on a family holiday we shall have to find the money elsewhere. We were thinking of a motoring and camping holiday down to Venice and back, as MasterShoestring has said that he wouldn't mind camping if he got to see Venice ! Research has shown that during the school holidays Airbnb is cheaper than most campsites, so I'm planning to use that service for a place to stay. I've also worked out the cost of a ferry crossing, petrol and a visit to Venice. For the three of us I think that £1100 for 2 weeks would be a sensible budget and at present have just over £600 saved from working at side jobs like tutoring and book selling.
The next category we have to plan for which is not in the budget is training costs if I decide to go on with my re-training at the end of the current year. I should get the qualification at the end of the year, but that just supplements the ones I have already got. If I want to be properly qualified so I can work independently, then I need to study for 2 more years at a cost of £1414 annually. I do not have any money saved for this yet, as I had to pay this year's course fees. I have applied for the re-payment of some pension contributions which were over too brief a period of time to produce a pension. The money is taking a long time to come but I hop to kickstart a training fund with that money.
Other than those 2 big goals that we had not thought of at the start of the year and which are both optional, we are managing to stick to our budget of £1500 a month for all of us. We were a bit overspent on petrol and dental costs last month but I think those will even up over the year. It is good to feel that we have choices and are still in the black during the first quarter of the year .
How is your budget doing ?
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