June 2020 - A Month In Review - The Frugal Cottage

Goodbye June! Another strange month, done. It has gone by so quickly, but not at the same time? I have been at home for three months now. Saying that, I have been into work twice this past couple of weeks. It was so strange! Not the usual working environment. It was nice to see some of my colleagues though, even from a distance. At the moment, it seems difficult to imagine going back to work normally. I suppose only time will tell if that will happen. I am in another couple of days during July.

In terms of our finances, it has had a positive impact. I suppose that’s some kind of silver lining to all of this. Our variable expenses in our budget – food, petrol, misc., and children – are very different to what they were a a couple of months ago. Our food spend has gone up a lot due to being at home all of the time and eating all meals at home. But, everything else has gone down. We’ve only spent £30 on petrol this month whereas we would normally have spent over £100. A definite bonus!

One of the things that I am most pleased with in June is that I have finally opened an Etsy shop! This has been on to do list for months and I have finally got round to doing it. I will be adding more and more to it over time but I am finally over on Etsy 🙂 and have something else planned for the end of this month, providing the time scales work. Watch this space! But feel free to browse the shop – my July budget planner is in there available 🙂

My Financial aims for June were:

– Have 20 No Spend Days (NSDs)

– Overpay the mortgage by £185

– Put £700 into savings

NSDs are a tricky one – technically as I’m not leaving the house I shouldn’t be spending at all. However, I have counted every time that my husband spends on food as a spend day. In a normal circumstance, it would be me buying the food shop so it’s just a slight change. I have managed 23 NSDs during June I can’t remember getting a number that high in ages! Another bonus to never leaving the house I suppose 😉 Overpayments are back to normal; in fact slightly more than the aim as I just haven’t been spending money in other areas. I have managed to overpay our mortgage by £189.28 which I’m happy about We are over target so far for this which is great! I have also put £700 into my investments, as per the plan. Plus, as we had some spare at the end of the month due to not spending I have also added £67.54 to our emergency fund so our total savings for June is £767.54 which is good the savings combined with the overpayment is such a big chunk of our combined take home pay. We are definitely working on THE PLAN 🙂

My Personal Aims for June were:

– take each day as it comes

– teach myself something new

I definitely have taken each day as it comes; some days have been easier than others. Some days have been a real struggle; I’m not ashamed to admit that. But, things are starting to get a bit easier. I think the transition back to whatever normal might be is going to be difficult when the time comes! And the teach myself something new was a success – I wanted to teach myself how to design my budget planner better and I have 🙂 plus I have a LOT more in the pipeline relating to that. Woohoo!

The top 3 posts on The Frugal Cottage during June were:

And over on YouTube, the top 3 videos were:

How has June been for you? What has been the best thing that has happened to you during the month?

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