September Reckoning

September was an expensive month for us and we spent over the usual budget of £1500. Some of this was planned spending, like the £295 on car insurance but some was not, like new clothes for 6th Form and buying textbooks !

One area I was pleased about was that the petrol spend was about half what it had been before I said that I would only be seeing tutoring pupils at the house, instead of travelling to people. Not only has this saved lots of petrol but quite a bit of time as well, so that was good.

We also stayed under budget in the Food column, which was a big achievement as I have had to put up MasterShoestring's lunch allowance to £15 a week. This effectively means that I have just over £100 a month for the rest of the meals for the three of us !

Spending also increased because quite a few utilities went up in price and MrShoestring's union dues went up from the introductory rate to the normal one. With all these increases I'm having to keep a close watch on what we spend and I've also sent off a couple of packets of books to Ziffit. Every little bit counts !

We need some new plates, the old ones lasted 13 years but now they are chipped I  have to re-purpose them for something else. However, when I looked at the cost of replacing them, £16.95 a plate, I decided that I'll just keep an eye out round the charity shops over the next few months. Waiting almost always saves money !