End of the January No (Low) Spend Challenge

Last month I decided to join in with Carla's January No (Low) Spend Challenge.  I would have loved it to be a 'No Spend' but I need milk in my coffee and I only like fresh milk, so that's a guaranteed spend every week.  I have £50 housekeeping a week to cover the costs of everything for two of us, while my How Low Can You Go challenge is on I'm trying not to spend too much of this, and obviously any money over can go into my other Challenge £2012 in 2012.  Lots of Challenges to keep me very busy!!

So, how did I actually do in January?

1st week - 3 No Spend days - spent £68.91

 (due to us eating out for LH's birthday, deficit carried forward)

2nd week - 5 No Spend days - spent £13.60

3rd week - 4 No Spend days - spent £32.53

4th week - 4 No Spend days - spent £39.79

So that's 16 days out of a possible 31, halfway there, not bad in my humble opinion for someone who's used to just grabbing her purse and dashing to the shops whenever she's ran out of something.

So, out of a housekeeping budget of £50 a week (that's for everything food, toiletries, meals out etc) I have managed to be sitting pretty at the end of the month with a grand total of £45.17 left.  So that's an average weekly spend of £38.70.

Out of my Personal Allowance of £20 per week I have managed to save £22.12, not bad considering I had my hair cut and bought a couple of little pressies.

So all this leftover money will be added to my other challenge 'The £2012 in 2012 Challenge' with any taking from sales and Blog income this month.  A total for that will follow when my Ebay sales are all paid for and I know I have the cash in my account.

My Challenge for February is again with Carla and I'm doing another Low Spend Challenge.   This month she's doing a Double Challenge Month with a No (Low) Spend Challenge and a Decluttering Challenge, but as most of my belongings are now packed away ready for the move there's not much I can do there.  What I am doing once we've settled in and unpacked, is ruthlessly streamlining all our possessions.  Seeing how little we are getting by with using whilst our stuff is packed away is pretty liberating and I intend to go on enjoying this way of living.

I'm hoping to do one more Blog post tomorrow morning, but then our Internet connection at this farm is being terminated, ready for the switch on at our new place, exciting stuff !  I'll miss you all briefly but I intend getting back into action just as soon as possible.  While we are apart I will be taking lots of photos of the new place, general ones and plenty of  'before' and 'afters' for you to have a look at.   One of the best things about Blogging is the ability to chronicle your life in such great detail and be able to go back and read through your successes and failures.

Remember this post anyone?

Sue xx