Finances And Chocolate

Hello Readers

Well my jaw has unlocked thankfully. Its still a little sore but I can talk and eat again yey lol. On the 2nd of September I had a water meter installed. I was fed up paying £69 a month fixed water rates and was sure that even as a family of 4 we could get that monthly payment down. From the 2nd of September till the 14th of September we used 10 units. I realized that this was way to much and there must be a leak somewhere. I rang the landlord and had someone come out and investigate where the leak was. It turned out the toilet cistern was constantly emptying and refilling itself and that's where the excess water was going. 1 plumber and 10 minutes later the problem was sorted and between the 14th September and today, 6th November we have used 9 units of water. I am looking forward to getting my first bill in December so I can work out roughly how much money we will save a year being on the meter instead of the fixed tariff.

Current water meter reading 19.253

I sat down and checked how we did on last months budget. As soon as I get payed I pay the rent and council tax for the month and all my household bills for the month. I then put the following into envelopes to last the month.....

Food £160
Entertainment £20
Xmas savings £30
Gifts £10
Clothing £10

As I don't have to buy Gifts or clothing every month a nice little surplus builds up in those envelopes for when a birthday or a needed item of clothing does crop up. Here's how I did this month.....

Food £124 (the £36 saved this month has gone into my long term savings account)

Entertainment £17 (the £3 saved this month will remain in the envelope. I have £33 left in this envelope)

Xmas savings £0 (I haven't bought any Xmas gifts this month. I have £270 left in this envelope)

Gifts £28 (I used the £10 budgeted this month plus £18 from my gifts envelope to cover little ladies birthday. I have £22 left in this envelope)

Clothing £10 (I have £40 left in this envelope)

So as you can see the only thing I came in over on was Gifts this month and that came out of the surplus money in my Gifts envelope. I anticipate Novembers food budget to be much lower this month as I did a big Tesco freezer shop and an approved food shop in October and thanks to all the yellow sticker bargains we have had through October we have barely touched any of it.



I made brownies today Readers I had a real hankering for some chocolaty gooey goodness and these certainly hit the spot.

The No Spend Weekend has gone very well and not a penny has been spent. Tomorrow I will pay all the bills, put money in envelopes, buy pet food/festivefoodbank items/and toilet roll, put £4 to one side for the hat/scarf/and 2 pairs of gloves we need. Once all that has been done it will be a No Spend Week for the rest of the week.


Until Next Time
Much Love
Maria