The Reckoning

As I said last week, August has been a very expensive month for us. We have spent almost double the usual monthly budget but it isn't so bad when you look at the figures as lots of the spending was for annual expenses which have been saved up for.

The big expenses were :- house insurance, which I got for less than last year; septic tank emptying, which I also got for less than last year; road tax, which has gone up a bit; car insurance, which I got for less than last year and a massive car repair bill ! We had not reckoned on such a large bill for the car repairs, but have decided to keep the car going, at least until it is 10 years old as reckon a couple of thousand a year to keep it going will be cheaper than buying a new to us large car. In three years time MasterShoestring will be finished at school and we reckon that we will not need such a large car then. Given the short time frame it then makes sense to try and keep the current one going.

There were also petrol expenses for going on holiday and spending expenses for the holiday, such as the trip to Venice. We did very well saving on food as the garden was producing so well and managed to spend less than £110 all month, which is great ! We celebrated a very frugal anniversary and look forward to a nice frugal September to build up the savings once more !