Bae likes flowers so I signed up for one of those monthly delivery services. They surprise her every month with fresh flowers. You don’t know what’s coming until they arrive since they only send out flowers of the month. You don’t get to choose. We’ve had 2 deliveries so far and I loved seeing how happy she was to receive them.
They send us flowers like this – although these aren’t the flowers we actually got.
It’s that time of month – time to review how well I did against my budget in January. Spoiler alert, I wasn’t great. I spent more money than I made and I pretty much spent too much in almost every category. Here are the gory details for you to revel in.
Happy New Year readers! I hope you’ve had as good a first day of 2020 as I did. I went off on a little adventure with bae – we had lunch then went up a mountain and played pool. It was excellent. I’ve spent the last hour trying to figure out what my spending is most likely to look like during this year.
The 2020 budget – hopefully my 20/20 hindsight will match this plan
Yep! That’s the budget. So let me break that down for you a little bit. Continue reading
I’ve just opened up my blogpost to write about my new year intentions and realised my last post was in January! It’s been nearly a year since I last posted. That is WILD. I didn’t prioritise my finances or this blog in any way last year and I’m about to change that as part of my plans for 2019.
These coins were once my lifeline – I needed them to get through my lowest week in 2016
Happy New Year! I hope your holidays and the new year have been as splendid as mine were.
Today’s post is not a good one. I had a relapse on the spendthrift front. I’ve spent far too much money in the last few months, especially around the holidays. Here are my confessions to the universe.
As I write this, I’m on holiday. I’m lying on a sofa sitting out the rain and somewhat anxious about the state of my bank accounts. It’s been nearly 2 years since I started this blog and I thought I’d have paid off all of my debt and been well on my way to financial independence. So far, this isn’t the case. I’ve just spent nearly £1,100 on a ticket to go visit my girlfriend – pulling funds from my savings accounts to manage it on fairly short notice – and am therefore currently in the negative on 2 of my accounts.
My view as I ruminate
If you wondered where I was for 2 months then you might have discovered that I met bae – who I’m really into. The defining thing about our relationship is that our top love languages are “touch” yet we live on different continents. This means that we struggle with the distance possibly more than other people and come up with wonderful little ways to cope. Ultimately though, we both figured that it would be too expensive to see each other at the frequency that we’d like for a very long period of time. So, a big change is afoot by the end of the year.
These coins were once my lifeline.
I’ve spent a lot of today trying to get my budget and spending tracking spreadsheet in a better shape for the second half of the year. It’s no secret that I’ve been dating someone who lives on a different continent the last few months and this new romance plus the challenge of maintaining communication when we’re not together has taken precedence over everything else in my life. I decided last month (and shared the news with some of my colleagues) that I’ll be moving away from London at the end of the year. This has prompted a desire to get my finances in top shape for the move – more on that in my next post – which means I can share my June spending with any voyeurs out there.
After many weeks of not prioritising my finances, I have finally got my act together with tracking my spending. In order to get a sense of what the (new) landscape looks like, I’m going to carry on with money diaries at least through to July when the person of interest (now to be referred to as bae) goes back. What does a week of treat yo’self look like? Feast your eyes:
I discovered my favourite flowers last week – black Petunias! Aren’t they pretty?
The last time I blogged was at the end of February. This is also the last time that I tracked my spending judiciously. I’d like to say that it was all down to my occasional extreme bouts of laziness but it’s been a little bit more than that. I have a strong suspicion that I’ve found “my person”. I met a cute girl when I was in San Fransisco at the start of March and even though nothing has happened, I’ve been caught up in a whirl of feelings that has manifested as insanely long phone calls and a complete disregard of most other things in my life.
A delightful afternoon at the beach in San Fransisco
Diary of a reforming spendthrift 