August Reckoning

1st September today and time to see how we did in August. Traditionally this is the most expensive month of the year for us as all sorts of bills fall due around this time. This month I also haven't had any luck with renewing them at a price that is less than last year's. For instance the house building and contents insurance was due, I got straight on to finding out if I could beat the renewal quote but I couldn't. Similarly with the energy bills !

We also had a some additional expense through having our young student to stay, some expenses are budgeted in the amount the agency paid but we ended up paying quite a bit more as he was so needy. Another additional expense, but a happy one was more new clothes for MasterShoestring as he got in to the 6th Form. I suppose it is too much to ask that he doesn't grow any more ??

The one area of the budget that did stay low was the FOOD bill, with a bit of rain falling the garden started to produce again, almost too much in the case of apples but some kind people put a few ideas in the comments so I've been trying  out those to help shift the surplus.

I am going to have re-do the budget, having already re-done it once in July, but a lot of things have gone up and I need to take account of the fact that this term MrShoestring is going to be working more so transport costs will increase and I need to up the budget for school lunches, so a bit of tweaking is required. Recently, I've also started to find it harder to get things we need second-hand, for instance, all the men's clothing I find at present seems worn out and not worth paying for. The other day I was looking for trousers for MrShoestring but the closest thing  I could find cost £6.99 in Oxfam and had no wear left in it, I realised that I could get a brand new pair in the CLEARANCE section of various online retailers for about that. So far I haven't been able to bring myself to buying new, but unless I find something this week I probably will !

The good news is that overall we did stick to the budget with £29 to spare !