May Challenges

There is beautiful blossom everywhere you look and I am looking forward to the weather going back to echoing the time of year !

May is always a busy time for us as there are 4 family birthdays, reports to be written and a car to service and MOT. This means a more than usually expensive month, but that's no problem when we have savings in the GIFT budget and the CAR SERVICE budget ! However, a few of our savings challenges will have to come to an end this month, MrShoestring's lost hat had to be replaced and now his fix for his slippers has come apart he will be needing a new pair this month. So that means the transformation of the 'buy no adult clothing' challenge into the " buy no adult clothing unless absolutely necessary" challenge ! After buying nothing new for 16 months I think it is alright to replace something which has worn out. I have been looking in the jumble sales but haven't found anything, so now the challenge will be to find a new pair at the best possible price.

The grocery challenge has also come to an end and I have already spent more money on food for May than I did for the entire month in April. It is all menu planned so we should need very little on top and as there is still a lot of fruit and vegetables in the freezers I think a good challenge for this month would be to run the stock down far enough that I can clean out and switch off one of the freezers.

I already have gifts for the birthdays and have sent one package off already. The postage costs were far higher than the cost of the gift and in future I shall have to take account the high cost of sending a gift abroad. I have a good list of easy to post gifts and shall try and make sure that I stick to those things or hand deliver gifts when we see people.

The biggest challenge to come is the public examinations coming up and if we can get through those and stick to the budget I shall be very happy ! Good luck to anyone else entering exam season !