October Finance Check: Where I Have Great News

Coming in a bit late into the new month with my October finance check. But better late than never, right!

How did the September budget go

As usual, in my October finance check I reflect on how I managed my money and budget in the previous month, it being September.

August saw my income decrease significantly with my part-time hours at the daycare ending and with an increase in my partner’s income the Working for Families Tax Credits have been lower as well.

Mentally as someone who has always worked at least to a some degree (if you don’t count parental leave) it was hard to get used to, but I threw myself into job search!

Which ended up being successful! I’ve been hired as a Personal Banking Advisor at one of the bigger banks and I’ll start mid-November. Until then I’m managing a lower income though.

Anyway.

I went over budget in September, by a good few hundred dollars. Part of it was higher than expected insurance costs but mainly it was other random expenses that popped up.

To be exact, I was expecting insurances to come to $163.38 but instead we paid $218.78.

I spent quite a bit more on petrol for my car as well, due to multiple trips to New Plymouth ($182.09 instead of $100), I hadn’t planned on spending any money on takeaways but did get a salad from Subway ($10.50) and I went really overboard with cafe spending ($191.50, thanks not working at all and going every day haha).

I put extra $25 to go towards my Finnish student loan since I had to transfer money to Finland at the end of the month to keep covering the expenses.

My other spending was over my target ($259.50 instead of $100) and consisted of $100 to pay my Purple Visa, $14 parking while in New Plymouth, $59.50 for a lunch with my friend (my treat), $21 on library fines (I had forgotten to return two books to New Plymouth for a good amount of time oops) and I also spent $65 on a little thank you gift for my workmates at the daycare for being a great support in my job hunt once I secured a new job.

I shopped a lot less in September and “only” bought another book at $27.99 haha.

Otherwise I didn’t come significantly under in many budget categories, just subscriptions nearly halved (from $60 to about $35) because I cancelled my Adobe plan, but also signed up for Prime Video (I mean how many streaming services does one need? Obviously all of them haha).

Supermarket spending was also $71 instead of $100 but it’s that low because of my low income and I only contribute to small refill runs.

In the end I spent $2,800.15 this month and had a $240.15 deficit.

Finance check: Savings progress

I saved $285 this month, mainly thanks to a $250 parcel I managed to complete.

Emergency fund

$10 out of the total went to my emergency fund, bringing the total to about $222. The account also received about $0.65 in interest.

Sleep out

I haven’t contributed to the sleep out account this month at all, but my partner has.

The total is about $6,394 and the account received nearly $12 in interest.

Trip to Finland

The rest of the money ($275) went towards our trip to Finland and the balance was about $8,160 and the account received about $30 in interest.

At the time of the writing I haven’t discussed the trip to Finland with my near future manager, so the timing of the trip is a bit up in the wind. I have to get the courage to discuss it next week to get some certainty.

Then, next step is to get passports for the kids and my partner, then flight tickets!

Other

I used all of my other savings to cover fees relating to maintaining this website, so that account is empty again! I decided not to add that into my normal spending as I’ve been keeping things relating to Love of Finance separate from my personal finances.

Finance check: Investing

I invested $40 this month, which went to just to my regular auto investment in Sharesies. I also received my biggest dividend to date, about $18!

Total dividends for this month were about $25, which I’m stoked about.

I haven’t done any further work on my portfolio, since looking at the composition last month.

Finance check: Debt

I keep going with the payments to my Purple Visa debt and the balance sits at $2,868. I haven’t used it again which I’m happy about (even though sometimes the temptation has been there!).

Looking forward

I have further reduced my Working for Families Tax Credits as our income expectation for this year has gone up, so my income will be even lower in October. My partner will most likely help out though if I do need it.

I’ll be doing some work prep related spending as well. My position is uniformed but I will need to supply my own shoes, socks and tights so will be spending some money on those. I also want a suitable work bag and I’ll need to update some make up (I haven’t worn any in years now!) and therefore some skin care as well.

I’m planning to get good quality items, so I’m prepared to spend more than I normally would on any of those mentioned above! I have my eyes on Bellroy bags and some Hush Puppy shoes, although I’m interested in Frankie4 as well. I will need to go try some on to see which size would suit the best.

I still need to sell quite a few items like my laptop, baby carrier and double pram, and I really should go through not only my clothes but my kids’ clothes too and see what needs to go (and if it’s worth selling).

To buy what I need I will most likely dip into my Finland savings as I have had them released now and I should be able to amp up savings once I start work.

Once I get my ducks in a row and the sellable items sold I will try to use that to replenish the savings.

Have you checked on your finances this month?