May 2020 - A Month In Review - The Frugal Cottage

Goodbye May! Another strange month, done. It has gone by so quickly, but not at the same time? I have been at home for two months now. It is only in the last week where I have ventured for some walks out in the countryside where we haven’t seen anyone. It is actually a little strange to go out in the car and travel somewhere else. I can’t imagine going back to work! In fact, I still don’t know when that will be. The longer this goes on, the more normal being at home feels.

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. That’s because I’m not travelling to work.

One of the best things this month was running my first live workshop! It was so great to talk finance and investing with people who wanted to learn. I’ve had lots of feedback – and some things to work on for next time – and I’m looking forward to seeing them again in four weeks to see the progress they have made in terms of their own investments. I have another one on July 5th, if you want to join me. I talk about how to start investing, where to invest and use my own dividend income strategy as an example of how I am doing things.

Another exciting thing that happened this month is that I finally hit the monetisation threshold over on YouTube! It has take me SO long to get to this point. I have done a video all about it, plus my page views and how much I have earned so far, if you want to have a watch.

My Financial aims for May 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 21 NSDs during May 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 £223.26 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 £251.18 to our emergency fund so our total savings for April is £951.18 which is good the savings combined with the overpayment is such a big chunk of our combined take home pay.

My Personal Aims for May are:

– take each day as it comes

– Upload another two products to The Frugal Cottage shop

I have done this! I am enjoying the slightly slower pace of life, especially in the mornings. Getting two small children and myself out of the door by 7:15AM was always a stress so it’s been nice not to have to do that! There are different aspects that I am not going to take for granted when things shift back to the new normal but there will definitely be things I will miss about being at home. And I have uploaded the NSD Tracker – Stars to the shop, plus I did my first workshop which I suppose was a kind of product. So I met this aim, sort of? I think so 🙂

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

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

Follow me on: