The goals for October were:
- Fix the bits on the cars I’ve already bought parts for – I’m terrible at buying parts and then never fitting them
- Sell five things
- Read a book thee evenings a week
Checking the assets and liabilities:


These are taken, as always, from my Beast Budget spreadsheet. This was a tough month. My employer has finally remembered they overpaid me, and took the overpayment off this month’s salary. I’m going to dip into the money I set aside when I was overpaid to cover me for the month. We also had a large number of expenses relating to the renovations, some unexpected, which led us to dip into our emergency fund. Given all this my savings rate for this month was -18.14%. There’s more renovation costs to come, and some health issues might require a private medical expense, so it’s going to be a lean couple of months. The usual cash regular savers were topped up, and new money in the Freetrade S&S ISA went to increase previous holdings.
If you fancy a free share, sign up to Freetrade with this link (I also get one).
Goals:
Goal failed: Fix the bits on the cars I’ve already bought parts for
Goal failed: Sell five things
Goal failed: Read a book thee evenings a week
These were all write-offs. I’ve been doing a 90-hour work week, with renovation work on top. Roll on next month.
Budgets:
- Groceries – Budget £200, spent £216.97, last month £181.42
- Entertainment – Budget £100, spent £65, last month £97.16 – Still spending too much on takeaways, easy to do when the house is full of dust and chaos.
- Transport – Budget £250, spent £129.54, last month £147.72
- Holiday – £150, spent £17.63, last month £118.99
- Personal – £100/ £280.50/ £87.26
- Loans/ Credit – £50/ £43.70/ £50
- Misc – £50/ £705.75/ £604.72 – Further renovation costs
- Fees – £300 /£629.75/ £268.60
In the garden:
Shut everything down for the winter, harvesting off the last of the squashes. I’ve got chinese cabbage, kale and winter lettuces on the go in the greenhouse.
Goals for next month:
- Fix the bits on the cars I’ve already bought parts for – I’m terrible at buying parts and then never fitting them
- Sell five things
- Read a book thee evenings a week
- Cut down on takeaway spend
Happy November everyone!
The Shrink