Welcome to my LAST lockdown Spending diary week 16! It couldn’t go on forever and this week feels like a natural time to pause. Summer holiday start next week so I will be taking a break from my website, to go to the beach, eat ice cream and drink gin and tonic. And my laptop is staying shut for a whole week.
This means that this week is crazy busy. I have a campaign going live with Zopa #realmoneystories and PensionBee comparing the past months spending to Faith from Much More With Less again. We started lockdown doing a spending diary comparison we though a perfect time to do another as we return to a new normal.
I have an article going live with Fabulous magazine/The Sun on Tuesday 14th July, showing how I feed my family healthy food for a week for less than £40. I am doing a live webinar with Lansons PR Agency on Thursday with my colleague and friend Kara Gammell of Your Best Friends Guide to Cash .
And finally I can get my nails done, Tuesday. Plus a new tattoo done on Thursday!! And breathe.
Monday 6th July £51
I made a determined effort to not spend too heavily this week. I did pretty well until the end of the week, where I made a spontaneous decision. Monday was mega busy with work and I felt proper mum guilt. I dropped it all at 1:30pm and took DJ out for a walk.
After an hour he started to talk about what was really going on, what was upsetting him and what help he needed. We had an hour spare before needing to collect little Jack who has returned to school, and a miracle the queue for the barbers for only 15 minutes. DJ finally got his hair cut. I took £20 from the cash machine to pay for hair cut.
I also paid for my new tea pot, cup and saucer and some beautiful chamomile tea, £31.
Tuesday 7th July £27
Again a busy morning with work, and I set Dylan to work on deweeding and tidying the driveway for his now agreed hourly rate of £10 an hour. He did it in 90 minutes and earned £15 cash. Win Win. PE, Financial education, and a job done that I hate.
We had a trip to the Co-op and spent £9 on who knows what, treats, and spent £7 on coffee, hot chocolate and a sausage roll for Jack for breakfast. I ran out of time to feed him before school.
I did an amazing live Facebook chat with Lauren Pope from TOWIE. She has a brilliant Facebook group called The Mum Space, and she invited me along to talk about mummy money saving. I loved the chat, Lauren is such a warm, gracious person. I cant e-meet her new baby soon!
Wednesday 8th July £48
I took the day off!! Wednesday was a very exciting day, firstly Trevor returned. My black panther cat, Trev, returned after five days missing. He strolled in whilst I was doing my yoga class. As if nothing had happened. Bad boy Trev. I was SOOOOO worried, and paced the village for many days with potential spots of a black cat. By day 4 we confirmed it was him and left our scent trail so he could find the way home. Spotted 300-400 metres away by the railway.
Secondly it was my website launch day and I couldn’t do anything to help it progress, my website was in the hands of Liz, Vicky and Robert at Lingo Designs. Mrs Mummypenny is now beautiful and grown up and live for the world to appreciate. I adore it. The colours, the design, the reader experience. Everything.
We went for a long walk at lunchtime, across the corn field to Lytton Arms to try out the stone oven baked pizza. The boys went for classic margherita, I went for gluten free, vegan, olive, onion, rocket pizza. Amazing. Highly recommend this pub. £33 for three of us.
Also paid for another month of Zoom professional membership. 100% worth the £14 I pay for recordings and unlimited meeting time.
My interview this week is with Cedric Menager. I love saying his name in a French accent. He is the CEO of PagoFX a new foreign money transfer app, backed by Santander. I am LOVING these interviews. Of course we talk about the wonders of value for money services that I know you will love but we digress and talk about the future of banking, money and mental health, different attitudes to money across Europe. Listen to the podcast or watch the Youtube video.
Thursday 9th July £ 878
Yes you read that correctly, £908. I paid for my second instalment of new website costs today, £840. I have been quoted so many times for website development over the past two years, they are normally around the £10k mark. TEN THOUSAND POUNDS. Not with Lingo. Much more reasonable, and they have done such an incredible job.
I popped to Tesco as it was a child free day and got some vegan bits, £30 spent. The detox continued until Sat. I am very pleased to report a total weight loss of 1 stone over the 21 days of detox. This was no alcohol, caffeine, meat, gluten, dairy, sugar and acidic food.
£7 paid for my kundalini yoga, that I LOVE. And a teeny stripe fee testing my book preorder.
YES, my book is now available for pre-order. The Money Guide to Transform your Life. It is written. 1st edit is done, 2nd edit is in progress. I am so close to having a FINAL version of this amazing book. I can’t wait to share it with you.
Friday 10th July £201
I worked on a social media campaign last week with Money Dashboard. I have been trying the app for a few weeks, learning about the clever functions and how it can help me to budget and understand my saving. It will be invaluable when I’m not doing such detailed spending diaries. You can sign up to the app here. It is free, and I think you will like it.
I bought a Standon Calling A3 framed poster of the 2019 lineup (my favourite year for artists and fun) as part of the crowd funding campaign. £50. So sad to not go this year, but next year will be huge.
I spend £60 on a Sainsburys 0% credit card repayment, I just need to pay it off. I will do this at the end of July.
My EE phone bill hit, at £79, my June bill was far too low so this is the catch up, plus I made a boo boo, I made a phone call to Portugal and was charged £10. Not happy. Always check your phone bill!!
I had one meeting on Friday to talk my book. More feedback from my editor, more changes to make. but we are nearly there.
Saturday 11th July £346
Yes I spent £364 in one day. Hmmm. I woke up Saturday morning and decided to go visit Retro Revival in London. I needed to visit London and get over my fear. It was brilliant, quiet, and I walked everywhere.
I had a two hour appointment at Retro Revival and got two beautiful dresses for £ 244. They are beautiful, quite possibly the best dresses I have ever owned.
I then walked to Piccadilly to go to Royal Academy of Arts, which was shut to public, only open to friends, and it was £130 to join a a friend! Instead I found Milos on the walk towards the train station, and popped in for my first post detox drink and beautiful Greek ceviche. £76. Yes £76.
Train ticket and Pret breakfast were just £11. In the evening I popped over to Frans house for Rose and chunky chips, £13 from the Co-op. Saturday was SUCH a fun day.
Sunday 12th July £ 18
I did nothing. For the whole day. A bottle of Rose after 21 days of detox was not a great idea. I did buy two face masks from my friends Clare & Nicky at Tilbea clothing for £18.
Total Spend for the Week £ 1568
But you can see there is a huge chunk of business expenses at £870. Eating out and clothing was high at £ 125 and £253 each. Groceries were low at £53, bills at £79 and fun money at £79. All in all a good week if you exclude business expenses and my two beautiful new dresses.
Watch out next week for my spending diary comparison to Faith Archer. I am scared as I have spent a lot in the past 4 weeks. I know that my spending will far exceed Faiths. But you know what lets wait and see.
Thank you for reading, I will be back with Monday Money and my money saving tips and ideas from the previous week after my holiday.
