The last week of September was weird because I busted my knee and ankle and had to spend the better part of a week resting, icing and elevating my left leg at home. I didn’t see many people or do many things and I got lulled into a false sense of [spending] security. Today, I went through the books and here are the findings on my spending last month:

The good

Side-hustling: I got £488.54 in payments from my theatre job and my freelance client in Germany. I bagged a trip to Munich (albeit a rushed one) and managed to visit the Oktoberfest fair for about an hour to boot. I also did over a grand’s worth of work for the freelance client but I won’t see that payment till this month.

Travel: After the hefty spending last month, I was genuinely surprised to see that I only spent £223.59 travelling. I watched my friends at their (rather frugal) civil partnership ceremony in St Albans, enjoyed Berlin and booked a few coaches to replace my cancelled Ryanair flights to Scotland.

The bad

Food: After a whopping £238.55 spend on food in August, I was thrilled to rein September’s to £164.27.  Sadly, I spent 60% of my food budget on takeaways so there’s still plenty of room for improvement in this area. I’d like to get it down to just over half that amount (£87) by the start of next year.

Socialising: I socialised frugally once last month – treating a friend to a cinema visit cost me £6.22 because I utilised 2 of my free Club Lloyds cinema tickets, and bought popcorn and drinks from a Sainsbury’s local across the road. The rest of the time I wined and dined my money away to the tune of £226.57.

Other: My miscellaneous entertainment (£113.96), food and expenses related to my impromptu work trip as well as sports related injury charges means that I spent a rather hefty 15% this month in this category.

The 21 day thrifty workout update

I wish I could actually finish one of my challenges positively. A football injury on September 23rd put paid to my frugal work outs and motivation for positive change. There’s nothing like being (mostly) home alone feeling sorry for oneself to trigger not-so-frugal things like buying treats from the groceries, resurrecting alcohol consumption and taking public transport and/or taxis everywhere. A quick summary of the last few days:

• Side-hustle – Yes, still caning it.
• Drinking only water / black tea – FAIL
• Eating home-made food 85% of the time – Caned it! I was home most of the time. I’d guess I ate 90% home-made meals.
• Walk/cycle everywhere – FAIL. I could barely walk for days.
• No-spend days – 1
• Saving till it hurts – Not yet. I loaned my dear friend about £1,200 so I have to wait for that to be paid back to carry with my target. Save the change is automating some additional savings for me so it’s a sort of win here.

I can only hope that October is a little better.