My Budget Review Q2 2008

I can’t believe how quickly the last 3 months have gone, but I guess that’s what happens when you go on holiday for 3 weeks! Anyway it’s time for me to review my spending against my budget for the last 3 months.

My spending on essentials (i.e. Rent, Food & Bills) is £113 under budget despite my rent increasing by £30 per month from June. The majority of this saving was as a result of me using up the contents of my freezer before going on holiday so not needing to buy as much food for those weeks. Another £7.31 of this saving was the result of my experiment to become vegetarian for the week.

My discretionary spending (i.e. everything except for essentials) was £816 under budget during the quarter. The majority of this was due to savings on my car insurance, the car not yet needing a service and using less petrol than I had budgeted (probably because I was on holiday!) which in total saved me £553. There was also £90.22 from betting refunds but I have already included those as part of my Euro 2008 challenge so they don’t count.

So in total I am over £800 under budget so far excluding the stuff I have already posted about on MillionaireAdventure. But I won’t be able to repeat many of these savings for the rest of the year, and inflation increases on food, petrol and bills is only going to get worse in the coming months. What I have done so far has set me up well for the rest of the year, but I need to remain focused on my spending if I am going to have any money left over at the end of the year to add to my total.