quick april update
Hello folks!
It’s well past mid May already and I haven’t even done an April update yet so here is a slightly shortened version for you.
expenses
In total we spent £2464 in April which has crept up from the last two months but is not surprising as we finally started to get into a routine with the little one and could actually go out and do stuff! Here is a brief breakdown of the major categories:
- Groceries £279 – Higher again than last month and also higher than I’d like but I think this includes a few baby clothes bought in one of the supermarket shops which I forgot to split in Money Dashboard. We’re also spending about £30 a month on baby formula now which is going to bump up this bill going forward I think.
- Clothes £94 – This amount seems about standard nowadays 🙂
- Dining and drinking/Going out £167 – Huge increase from last month! We had a couple of nights out each while the other looked after baby and a few lunches out etc… All very pleasant and not really that expensive in the grand scheme of things.
- Holiday £98 – We booked some ferry trips to the Isle of Wight for a couple of cheap holidays this year. We paid for most of it using Tesco we got using the Topcashback/Clubcard hack so this was the remainder.
- Petrol £57
- DIY £55 – Just some residual spending while I finish off a few of the jobs in the bathroom/kitchen. I can see this being an ongoing thing for at least the next 6 months as I tinker around the house whenever I have my two weeks off 🙂
- Golf £80 – The weather is improving and we had one of our comps which are always fairly expensive, still not blowing the budget on this one though.
- Charity £67 – Not a bad month for charity but we’ve decided to ramp up our donations a bit going forward – more of this in a separate post coming soon (basically we have been thinking along the same lines as weenie mentioned here I think!)
- Children £6.80 – Who said kids are expensive eh!?! 🙂 . Actually this is a little off the mark as I’m sure *we* (ahem, Mrs T) bought a couple of cutesy outfits at the supermarket that didn’t get tagged properly. Even so, a very frugal month for little T – well done my girl taking after your father 😉
- Birthdays £118 – Part of Mrs T’s present plus four other big ones meant quite a big month for present buying this month!
income
In total we bought in £4717 which is pretty good although this should be dropping next month as Mrs T’s maternity falls back down to statutory only. As well as our normal job income this included:
- Cashback Credit Cards £18 – Long gone are the days where we were getting £100+ a year from the barclay card but £18 for what we’d normally be spending anyway is better than a kick in the teeth.
- Solar Panels £119 – With the better weather coming these payments start to rise dramatically. Go solar!
- The House Crowd £65 – Our first dividend payment from The House Crowd! I’ve been with them for a year now and haven’t written much about it so expect a series of posts on this soon.
- Matched Betting £288 – This includes £48 from just “having a punt” and £240 from “actual matched betting”. Time was the biggest factor here but I’m happy with the profit considering I hardly spent any time on it at all.
- SSSH £1099 – Boom! That’s all I can say on this one though 😉
- Child benefit £82 – Thank you Mr Government!
savings rate
We hit a savings rate of 47.77% which I am very happy with and we’re on an average for 48.18% for the year so far, again very happy with that! In terms of years to being fully FI my spreadsheet tells me it will take 14.8 years at this current rate, not bad for someone working part time 😀
pension and net worth AWOL
The company I work for finally got ripped from the parent company’s teat for good last month which means as well as a new and exciting office in Hammersmith the pension scheme has changed slightly. I don’t know why but it means my contributions plus the employer match seems to have gone up from £289 to £350. This is a good thing I guess but I’ll keep an eye on it! It also means I have no access to the old pension system online at the moment (hoping this is a temporary thing!!!) so I can’t track what that pension pot stands at which makes the Net Worth figures all a bit pointless at the moment seeing as that is/was around a third of our Net Worth. I’ll try to find out how to access the old pot, if we can transfer it to the new pot and if it’s actually worth doing that financially and hopefully have a more concrete update next month.
Having said that, if I assume my pension pot has not dropped since I last could check it a few months ago (very likely seeing as the markets have risen in that period) then our Net Worth without the house stands at £104,666. This actually constitutes a slight drop from last month so I’m thinking a bit of my money has been unaccounted for in matched betting bookie accounts. I’ll try to have a proper audit of my accounts for the May report and make sure I’m not missing owt!
Having said that once more, I found a better way to track our mortgage and it turns out we owe slightly less than I thought. I found out that getting a free monthly credit report from noddle.co.uk (no affiliation) tells me exactly how much we owe on the mortgage. So that beats my crappy estimate which is good! So our house equity jumped by £1,597 simply due to this bring our total Net Worth including the house up to £178,423
Finally (thank goodness, I thought this was supposed to be a quick update I hear you say!) I am also not sure of whether Mrs T will be getting pension additions while on maternity leave so will try to work that one out as well.
personal updates
Now for the self indulgent bit where I tell you what I’ve been up to. Well I’ve enjoyed another 2 weeks off at the end of April and it’s the first one for a very long while (since my first one in September/October in fact) I’ve had where I haven’t been running around like a headless chicken, even more busy than I would be when I’m working! So that is a long way of saying it was thoroughly enjoyable!
We spent a few nights in the Isle of Wight in a caravan to test out how Baby T was “on the road” and she seemed all ok with it. We are going back with family later in the year. We got lucky with the weather and it was very dry and bright but not quite tops off on the beach weather. We spent most of the time ambling around the sleepy seaside towns, eating ice creams, playing crazy golf, and drinking tea and a few fine local ales. I love it over there and looking forward to going back soon. Who needs £5000+ overseas holidays to relax and unwind eh!?
The rest of the time was spent seeing friends and family, doing a few small jobs around the house and tidying up the garden a bit. I’ve installed my mini green house into the garden (bit late really but oh well!) and need to get planting very soon or I will have missed the growing season yet again… maybe this weekend will yield some more time for that!
We’ve also joined the National Trust (actually a christmas present from Ma + Pa TFS but normally only about £100 for a couple I believe) which is a very cheap way of entertaining yourself and I would definitely recommend it. There are quite a few nice old houses with lovely gardens round our way and if the weather is nice it’s a great way to get out and enjoy it on the cheap. I’m not really one for the history side of it myself but they are easy on the eye and it feels like you are doing a good deed for those of us that do enjoy that side of it by keeping them open.
I’m back at work now for a full 4 week stint, the longest I’ve been at work since January (I know I know, get those tiny little violins out people!) but the good news is that we’ve finally moved into our own office as we’ve broken away form mega-corp. Which has turned out to be great! The new office is much nice, in a better location and they’ve even provided free breakfast in the ample kitchen for us (porridge, toast, cereal, fruit basket and all the condiments you’d ever want). It’s these little things that I think a lot of employers miss, it must cost them jack all but improves worker happiness by a much larger factor compared to the cost. I could go on a rant about companies who cost cut every penny possible in the name of profit but I’ll save that for another day I think.
Sorry again about the lateness of the post, and hope you are all having a terrific May now that the sun is finally out! 🙂
How did you get on in April? Tell me what you’ve been up to, please!?
Discussion (20) ¬
Hi TFS,
A nice run through in April – and I am going to check out Noddle, Ive not come across that before, could be interesting!
I have to say I have a soft spot for Hammersmith, looked down upon but lots of green areas if you know where to look and nice near the river – enjoy it, and congrats on the ongoing increase to networth!
London Rob
Hi Rob,
Ah sounds like a few people haven’t heard of Noddle, I wish I’d mentioned it earlier now as I signed up to it about 2 years ago. Apologies to all readers, I’ll try to remember to share everything I come across properly in future 🙂
Yes I think it’s a very nice area so far. The walk from Ken/Olympia is in the main very pleasant and like you say some nice green areas. Went for a jog at lunch time down by the river as well which was lovely.
Cheers and hope you have a great month 🙂
Thanks for the update Firestarter. I was wondering how things were getting on, on your side of the pond. Our April was outstanding, because we were still on the 10 week roadtrip. We’re back now, and working on what’s next. Not sure what will come, but at least we have plenty of options. Just need to be patient…..
I hope your week finishes up great.
-Bryan
10 week road trip sounds amazing!!! Very jealous 🙂
Hope you have a fantastic weekend Bryan
Nice update there TFS, excellent savings rate considering so many changes still going on in your life, especially with the little ‘un.
Great numbers on the income, in particular on the matched betting and the SSSH! I look forward to reading more about the House Crowd too.
Thanks for the link to Noddle. I signed up and it was interesting to see all the searches done by the various betting companies I’d signed up to recently for matched betting! Even more interesting to note the ones that didn’t bother with any searches, haha1 It’s a good job I have an excellent credit rating!
But like you say, the most useful bit is it tells you what you owe on the mortgage (my guess has been pretty accurate so it’s good to know!). It also shows my credit cards, where I had a bit of a shock at first, until I realised that it had included my credit card which I pay off in full every month, phew!
Cheers weenie.
Haha, yea it surprised me at how many anti money laundering checks there are for the bookies. At least they are attempting to catch out the real crooks though ay! 🙂
All the best
Thank you for sharing! It builds confidence in us. You know the feeling that I am not alone in this? I keep telling me Freedom is right there.
Thanks for the comment Makayla! Yes I know what you mean, FI types are few and far between out there in the real world so it’s good to huddle down together online 🙂
SSSH comes up as something quite… interesting when searched on Google.
Any more info?
I count up your spending to £1021.80 but you have another £1400 of spending. What not counted? The rent/mortgage, tax? What is it?
Oh! Haha! I think I better come up with a new Acronym for that then!
It just meant Super Secret Side Hustle. No more info I can give you than that though but no it’s nothing to do with whatever came up on Google 😉
Regards the spending, I only write up the “highlights” so the post doesn’t get too long and boring. I normally add in a link to my spreadsheet so people can see the rest if they really want to but I forgot to this time… here it is if you want to take a look (and feel free to copy for your own use as well):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xwv-17AI9cFlOCvTn3dPeze-TAyt8A2EM6xgwR_9ZoI/edit?usp=sharing
But the short answer is yes the bulk of that is the mortgage (£840) plus other standard bills etc…
Cheers!
I’d be interested on a blog post on your exploits with matched betting for how you go about it now. I know in a previous post you said you mostly go for offers on £20+ because of time.
I’m just going through the sign up offers at the moment and looking at a few on going deals which i can do now, but i’d like to know what are peoples staple on-going deals that they usually get to turn a tidy profit every month
Hi Maya,
I do plan on doing a post on Matched Betting soon so keep your eyes peeled!
Hopefully before the end of the month or if not then at the start of June.
Cheers!
Something I’m confused about with my copy of your TFS Saving/Spending/NW spreadsheet –
Does your income cell (G18) include your Pension contribution (G12) or not? If not, I suspect I need to fudge a row in the income section that subtracts my SIPP contributions from my income – I’m self employed, so my SIPP comes out of MY pocket rather than an employer’s.
Along similar lines, does your pension contribution figure (G12) include the tax rebate or not?
Hi Leo,
No the income doesn’t include pension, I maybe should have just included those pensions rows in the income section underneath as I can see why it’s a bit confusing, but I wanted to break it out and see our savings % if you didn’t include that (Cell G14 for example). Mainly because that is automatic so it’s not really us doing anything conscious to save (And also other bloggers such as weenie do not include that in their savings %age… so I can benchmark myself easier to those other peoples way of calculating it)
You don’t necessarily have to fudge a row, couldn’t you just manually work out your SIPP contributions and put your income in cell G18 less that? Slight pain but would literally take 3 seconds each month, assuming you know what your SIPP contributions are which I assume you already do? Then you can add in SIPP contributions into the pensions cell, G12.
Also it does include the tax rebate because this is done automatically through work (at least I believe it is! I bloody hope it is otherwise I’ve been forgoing a few hundred pounds at least a year in tax rebates for the last 3-4 years haha)
When I make voluntary SIPP contributions I put the tax rebate into the income row G36.
Hope that clears things up for you but if not feel free to ask any more questions. Obviously if you need to modify the spreadsheet have at it, it’s an open source doc so if you think you can improve it send me your version and I will incorporate any changes I think are good. Always looking to improve it but don’t always have time etc and it’s far from perfect as it is! 🙂
Cheers
I had a thought about this, while inputting September’s data. I happen to also have just done my SA tax return, and I know roughly what my Student Loan Repayment’s going to be – this, again, is deducted via Self Assessment for those of us who are self employed or running limited companies, rather than through PAYE.
I’ve opted to accrue a monthly debt within the Income section, which obviously brings down my Total Income. This debt is then cleared whenever the Repayment’s made (likely last week of next January), but thus doesn’t have to appear anywhere in the “Expenses” section. It probably also gives a fairer Savings rate, as it doesn’t include an amount one’s setting aside to later pay a tax bill.
Hi Leo,
Sounds like a great solution!
Hi TFS,
Great to read your April update. I too am way behind on my posts and FIRE blog site reading because I’ve just gone through a big house move (late May) which required a LOT of pre-move packing, and now surrounded by boxes, bags and furniture that has not yet found a home in the new house I’m still mega busy with house stuff. Plus we don’t have broadband until the end of June 😳
Well done with your savings rate, that’s a nice average to have. I think when I get to working mine out for April and May I’ll have to do a catch up post and then continue as normal from June!
OR
Hi OR,
Yes life does tend to get in the way of blogging both writing and reading doesn’t it?! Having gone through a few periods of inactivity I can testify that yes indeed, the blogging world will still be there when you get back to it, and it’s definitely nothing worth stressing about, especially when you have enough on your plate with moving etc… as well!
Thanks on the SR… not sure we’ll keep it up throughout the year as the second half of the year always tends to be more expensive for us as that is when we take more holidays and also when most of our yearly expenses (insurance etc) come up. But we’ll try!
Hope you are well on the way to getting settled at the new house. 🙂
Cheers!