Everyone knows I’m a natural spendthrift, I mean even new readers of the blog can tell as much from the title. Two things that might not be as immediately obvious are:
Love love this movie – nothing to do with this post but there’s no Love and FI movie.
I like introspection and challenges. I can’t seem to give my best unless I have stretch targets. I’m equally scared of failure and not so bothered by it (because anything in the direction of my target is better than where I started). New Year’s is always an extra special time of year in this regard, since everyone knows that the end of the year is meant for reflection and challenging oneself with New Year’s resolutions.
So I tracked my spending pretty diligently from mid-August until the end of December (my end of December was the 25th because my months currently start on payday while I try to get a month ahead on my bills). I haven’t shared my findings in a single post yet, mainly because for the first 6 weeks I was tweaking my tracking. The last three months, I’ve been more consistent. Here’s what the last quarter of 2016 looked like.
It’s the third week of November and a quick glance at my spend tracking spreadsheet shows that I’ve decimated the budgets for the last 3/4 weeks. For the first time since August I’m a little bit clueless about how much I should have in my given accounts even though I know my balances and how much I’ve spent give/take a couple of contactless payments I made last week. I’ve spent frivolously (£15.50 Cookhouse Joe’s lunch I’m looking at you), generously (£416 towards my parent’s Airbnb stay since they’ve been visiting me in London) and to save money on a future purchase (£16.80 on 2 tubs of Bodyshop’s hemp body butter because this is the only thing that prevents my super dry winter skin and I got 40% off on the day). Continue reading
This week has been a spending disaster! I bought items that I hadn’t planned to – mainly because they looked nice and would be suitable for my wardrobe. For the first time in 2 months, I’m uncertain what my account balances should be and I have more unexplained money in my weekly spending account than I’ve had for quite a while. How have I got into such a mess?
It’s only been a little over 2 months since I had my lightbulb moment and began my journey to financial independence. I’m a little bit obsessive so once I discovered it was possible to retire early, that became my goal. I’ve read hundreds of blog articles, explored many options and thought a lot about how awesome it would be to be free from the tyranny of the 9-5 job. In the last couple of weeks though, I’ve realised that I’m not necessarily trying to quit work. I’m just trying to “decouple pay from work” – a phrase that I picked up from an awesome article written by Jim Wang for the Our Next Life blog. Continue reading
I spent a lot of money last week although my Excel spreadsheet tells me that I was slightly under budget. It’s probably important to point out that last week’s budget was nearly twice my preferred weekly spend (since I started tracking expenditure ) – at around £290. It was my best friend’s 30th birthday party so for the first time in a long time I let my hair down at a restaurant and bought drinks at a bar and club subsequently. I also got her a fairly pricy gift. This week, I created a budget that’s supposed to redress that so that I can come in under budget for the whole month. Off the back of that, I have made some intentional changes to ensure I spend a lot less than normal this week. Continue reading
I’ve been trying to learn Italian for a few years. My first trip, after I’d got a graduate job and felt entitled to start seeing the world (in style), was to Rome. I went with a work friend and we picked Rome because at the time we were obsessed with Dan Brown books and Angels and Demons had just been released. We wanted to see all the places that were mentioned in the book plus who doesn’t love Italy? I fell in love with the people, the culture, the food, the ambience, the weather (in March), and most of all the language. I don’t think I made any serious efforts to learn how to speak though until 2009 when I met my kick-ass friend FL who I girl-crushed on and wanted to impress with my language skills. Continue reading
Diary of a reforming spendthrift 