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.
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.
Although I started tracking my spending nearly 3 months ago, I’ve only just got data through that was entered in a consistent enough format, as well as provides a more holistic view of my income and expenditure, for me to base future goals and budgets on.
That’s Google’s definition of luxury. 6 months ago I would have associated a cost with that. Perhaps you had to be wealthy or you had to spend a lot, like I used to. I would have thought about restaurants like Locanda Locatelli for a luxurious special night (£100+ per head) or Hawksmoor for a budget special night (£50 per head). I might have thought about 5 star hotels with beautifully turned down beds, the fluffiest towels and £15 burgers. I would think chauffeur driven cars and free champagne in first / business class train and plane seats. Continue reading
Enchiladas for double date night with the housemate
In a week dominated by hosting far too many joyful expenses and unexpectedly expensive stuff to deal with injury and illness, I still managed to stay on budget. Continue reading
It’s not been as easy as I would like to track my spending the last couple of weeks, mainly because of a couple of deferred spending scenarios – TFL I’m looking at you – that make it difficult to look at my accounts on Monday morning and know that every penny in them is actually mine. This week, though, because I didn’t get charged for travel on Sunday (weekly travel cap for the win), I’m in a much better place today. Continue reading
Last week was quite difficult to keep track of because I had money moving in and out of everywhere and I didn’t always have the opportunity to track daily.
Monday
Monday
Tuesday
Monday
Tuesday
This was my first week of tracking all my spending religiously. I’m trying to get a baseline, a sense of what I’m OK at, what needs improving as well as a way of tracking change over the next 2 years or so that I think it will take me to become totally debt free.
Monday
Tuesday
Diary of a reforming spendthrift 