July and August were really good months for us as a family. Vince had booked lots of holiday from work which meant we were able to do lots of fun things together and make the most of our summer.
However, they have also been really expensive months for us when there wasn’t really much extra money to be had. Ooops!
So I have decided to join up with Carla from My Half Dozen Daily for her No-Low Spend Challenge this month. It couldn’t be better timing for us!
This means keeping everything on or under budget and making the budget tighter than usual. But as this is going to be a pretty quiet month anyway, it shouldn’t be too difficult!
Our Goals
1) To keep our weekly grocery shop ( ie. food & toiletries) at £30 or under.
This will mainly mean writing and keeping to a menu plan and eating less expensive meals.2) To keep any extra essential expenses for September as far under £120 as possible (and definitely not over!)
This means things such as a hair cut for Emma, petrol costs, etc… (my birthday.. ahem.. :P)3) To put at least £50 into the Christmas Savings account
4) To reduce our overdraft by a minimum of £250.
I’m also hoping this month to push forward with selling my crochet items and make a little more extra income for us. This plus any blog revenue from advertising will be put towards clearing the overdraft. Our long term goal is to be free of the overdraft cycle before christmas.
I will try and do a weekly post to share how we are doing and whether we are managing our weekly budget of £30 which will be the toughest I think. I’m feeling positive though!
Do you find it easy to live by a budget?
Thanks for joining in with my challenge this month! I agree with you about it being an expensive summer! For us as well! You have some great goals, I think you’ll do great!! 🙂 Looking forward to reading about your progress!! 🙂
Good for you Naomi, I hope it goes well 🙂
I’m also having to tighten the purse strings around here, my husband is now officially retired from the military and we haven’t even received our last paycheck, which puts everything on hold. It’s scary but we’ll be ok.
I should probably look into this challenge and try to follow along too 🙂
I am doing Carla’s challenge too.
And glad you are putting your birthday in the budget. It is nice to have something to look forward to.
Love how the British say “petrol”. In Canada we say “gas”. Petrol sounds so much more sophisticated.