October Spending Diary

Now if you read my last spending diary then you’ll know I was hoping to save some money this month as I was back on holiday for a week with work. And what a week it was! I was back in the Portuguese sunshine with 300 colleagues I had never met. I’d only met a handful over Zoom, so it was definitely an experience! But a great experience that I’m so glad I got to go on. But back to the spending diary. Here’s what I spent in October.

Week one 1st – 3rd October £1,758.68 (although £500 was savings)

The shortest week of the month but absolutely the most expensive week of the month! As always, everything comes out on the 1st so it was very spendy. £635 went on my mortgage, £127 for council tax. £28.15 for broadband, £74.72 on utilities. £243.03 for my car, £22.99 for the mortgage insurance. As well as £100 in my investment account, £500 into savings, £17.80 in Waitrose and £9.99 for Netflix.

Week two 4th – 10th October £420.79 (although £127 was reimbursed)

This week was a little better. £86 went to Moneybox, £18.55 went to Waitrose, £5.19 went on Subway (which I’d not had in years!), £18.05 went to Tesco, £127 went on Pod Parking at London Heathrow (although this is reimbursed by the company) and £166 went on two tickets to see the Foo Fighters at the London Stadium.

Week three 11th – 17th October £494.85

I started the week with the usual £86 to Moneybox, followed by £8 in the dry cleaners, £4.99 for Apple TV, £10.99 on Canva, £150 on tickets to see Liam Gallagher at Knebworth, £47.50 on getting my nails and toes done for my week away. £32.62 on Dominoes with the family. £35.75 went on dinner with a friend. And £55 went on getting my lashes and brows done and £64 went on getting my roots done before my week away.

Week four 18th – 24th October £409.04 (although £270 was reimbursed)

This was the week I was on holiday with work, so not quite as expensive as the other weeks. It started with the usual £86 to Moneybox, £7.60 on Pret at the airport, £270 on Coldplay tickets (but this was reimbursed as a gift from my dad), and £5.15 on food at M&S. £9.99 for Spotify and £22 on flowers for a friend’s birthday as well as £8.30 on two cards from Thortful.

Week five 25th – 31st October £409.12

Once again we start with £86 going to Moneybox. £15.19 on food at Sainsbury’s, £25.85 on food at Tesco, £64.18 to Vodafone for my phone bill. £113.30 on my Adele ticket! £24.91 as a car maintenance payment, £15.99 to Lyrical Host. £33.70 on display stands for my handbags and £30 to my cleaner.

Total = £3,492.48 although £397 was reimbursed and £500 went into savings. So really, the total spent was £2,595.48

Well, I’m not sure I achieved the spend less mantra I was trying to. I mean I ended up buying four sets of concert tickets over the course of the month! I’m off to see the Foo Fighters, Coldplay, Liam Gallagher and Adele next summer. Which will be amazing, but it’s meant my October spending diary has definitely been more than it should have! Oh well, here’s to next month!