Hands up if you spent a small fortune last week during half term and the Jubilee weekend?? Me, 100%. I have just updated my spending diary as I do every Monday and have added up all the spending. This process might be painful, but its worth doing to draw a line under the last week.
I managed to spend a total of £546. A rather scary £316 of this was food, I shopped very ineffectively at the supermarket. I have slipped back into buying from Tesco and its costing so much more than Aldi. From this week I switch back. Its literally an extra five minute drive. We had a few days out and spent a chunk of eating out too, the biggest bill being £70 at Meat Liquor on a day out in London.
We had a day out in London where we just went for it, we got the train (using my Friend and Family railcard, just £14 for all three of us) and had pancakes in Kings Cross, then walked (saving a whole £2.50) to London Zoo (£50 on tickets, but saving £20 as I used a 2 for 1 voucher for Day Out Guide from National Rail). Great tip to always use this for EVERY London attraction, buy 1 ticket get one free provided you get the train into London.
We also paid Nike town a visit, my boys idea of heaven. They both had some money to spend so bought some clothes and a football.
They had a brilliant day and I LOVED the visit to the zoo.
A Day at The Beach
We also had the most wonderful day at Frinton-on-Sea beach on Friday. The best day of the week for blue skies and sunshine. We had a solid four hours before the tide came all the way and got us, forcing us to abandon the beach and head for ice creams instead. The best bit was getting to swim, the water was warm and we bobbed around for ages in the waves.
We took a picnic so this was a cheap day, just the cost of fuel to get to Frinton (around £15) and ice creams.
Do you own hair
I am a big fan of dying my own hair rather than an expensive trip every couple of months to the hairdresser. Really pleased with my hair this week, I’ve gone back to darker brown with a slight tint of red. The hair dye is £4.50 a packet, Nutrisse Garnier, the one that Davina promotes. Its so easy and always works.
I must also point out that my skin, nails and hair are all looking incredible at the moment. This is what 3 weeks off the booze does for you.
Kids Pass Discounts
We saved another chunk of money this week using my Kids Pass Discount. This saved us around £10 off cinema tickets, we saw Top Gun. AMAZING film!. We also went bowling and saved 10% using a discount code from the Kidspass app.
No alcohol Savings
I estimate that I have saved around £300- £400 already in the past three weeks with my break from the booze. I have had a few opportunities where I could drink and the thought hasn’t even entered my mind. Its been a very powerful time, so good for the body and mind to take a break.
New Mortgage payments
My mortgage has now gone up slightly with the new three year fixed deal that I started in May. I now pay an extra £25 per month, but have locked in a 1.7% interest rate for three years, hopefully this will ride the interest rates hikes and it will head back down again once the bank of England has got inflation under control. This is just my view and what I am comfortable with, but if you want to lock in your monthly mortgage payments for a period of time, a fixed rate deal is the product to go for. A variable rate mortgage will go up every time the interest rates change.
As ever thank you for reading. If you would like a cheap way to digest all of my financial tips and guidance you can buy my book direct from me for £9.99. The Money guide To Transform your Life.
