2014 Planning

It will be more of the same with some things done differently! We've slightly adjusted the amount going straight into savings so there's more than we're currently saving but we're going against the grain and getting rid of the annual expense fund. We've had one for coming up to 10 years and it doesn't really work for us any more. We may return to this system of budgeting in the future, but not next year. 

It was ideal when we were paying off debts and we needed to know there was a separate account for car stuff, vet bills, gifts and things like that but that's not where we are now. We've been working to a budget since 2003 when we had the lightbulb moment so over the years we've jiggled and adjusted things so it works out that we have one biggish expense per month - January is nothing, February Dan glasses, March pre-paid prescription, April loads of birthdays, May car stuff, over the summer my glasses, any work on the house and the boiler service, October car tax, November bunny vaccinations, December Christmas. So we can just deal with those expenses from the main budget because we know they're coming. If there's an emergency there's the emergency fund to fall back on. 

We're not going to reduce the amount going into the grocery budget account but it looks like we can do well on far less than the £190 a month we thought we were struggling on. We haven't stuck to £90 for the past two months but having it as an aim has been great as we've been much closer to it than we would have been otherwise. The surplus cash has been stashed into my ISA for a nice little boost. 

If it ever stops raining I'm going to nip out for a sealed pot. I started a change jar but it has already been raided for change for car parking, so a sealed vessel is needed!

We're not having a not-holiday next year but we are heading south for a wedding, assuming we can find someone to babysit the bunnies. We've never left the buns overnight before but we really want to go to the wedding so fingers crossed. We're also both invited to the stag do in London but whether that happens or not I don't know. I very much like the idea of going to a stag do as I've never been on one before, with being a woman and all that so it's very tempting. We shall see.