Spending
| Category | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Eating out | £34.25 | A meal out and a takeaway |
| Entertainment | £254.53 | TV licence, Spotify, four lottery tickets (no wins), competitions magazine, a bet on the football (didn’t win), drinks when out, Latin dance classes, and noise cancelling headphones (Sony WH-1000XM4 – the previous model, but still brilliant. I had a £100 Amazon voucher that I put towards the cost.) |
| Groceries | £158.76 | Budget of £40/week = £200 for the month. |
| Health | £60.99 | CrossFit (2 x week membership) £40 and PureGym (unlimited) £20.99. |
| Housing | £1719.86 | Mortgage, gas and electric, broadband, council tax. I renewed my home insurance and got a £20 Lidl voucher as part of the deal (as good as cash to me). I put my house up for sale and incurred a few (hefty) costs: A survey (mandatory in Scotland so that a home report can be prepared) (£575) The insertion fee for the local website that’s most popular with people looking to buy property (£300) Photographer to take professional photos (£77) Since I’m selling my house, I didn’t choose another fixed-rate mortgage when it ended on 31 August; instead, I choose a variable-rate deal that doesn’t have an early repayment charge, which means that when my house sells, I can pay it off without penalty. However, in the short term, it means paying more due to rising interest rates. |
| Mobile phone | £6.90 | SIM only deal with Lebara. |
| Presents | £175.55 | Birthday presents for my partner, sister and brother. |
| Shopping | £6.71 | Birthday cards and a shampoo bar. |
| Technology | £75.58 | Google One cloud storage, a 4 TB external hard drive and a mouse |
| Transport | £71.48 | Fuel |
| Total | £2564.61 |
Premium Bonds
No win. Boo.
Savings Rate
| Savings rate excluding pension | 15.12% |
| Savings rate including pension | 23.88% |
Net Worth
| Including Pension and Primary Residence | Including Pension, Excluding Primary Residence | Excluding Pension, Including Primary Residence | Excluding Pension and Primary Residence | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | £626,103.58 | £517,231.54 | £337,731.83 (-£5181.81) | £228,859.79 (-£5518.84) |
| Feb | £626,450.46 (+£346.88) | £517,150.95 (-£80.59) | £336,149.46 (-£1582.37) | £226,849.95 (-£2,009.84) |
| Mar | £635,806.88 (+£9,356.42) | £526,117.29 (£+8,966.34) | £343,576.63 (+£7,427.17) | £233,887.04 (+£7,037.09) |
| Apr | £634,569.78 (-£1,237.10) | £524,494.33 (-£1,622.96) | £524,494.33 (-£1,622.96) £340,410.28 (-£3,166.35) | £230,334.83 (-£3,552.21) |
| May | £637,067.24 (+£2,497.46) | £526,603.17 (+£2,108.84) | £340,978.24 (+£567.96) | £230,514.17 (+£179.34) |
| Jun | £632,859.07 (-£4,208.17) | £522,012.77 (-£4,590.40) | £334,840.82 (-£6,137.42) | £223,994.52 (-£6,519.65) |
| Jul | £645,969.55 (+£13,110.48) | £534,738.20 (+£12,725.43) | £346,021.80 (+£11,180.98) | £223,994.52 (-£6,519.65) |
| Aug | £649,251.07 (+£3,281.52) | £537,638.33 (+£2,900.13) | £347,373.82 (+£1,352.02) | £235,761.08 (+£970.63) |
| Sep | £647,937.76 (-£1,313.31) | £530,964.26 (-£6,674.07) | £346,060.51 (-£1,313.31) | £229,087.01 (-£6,674.07) |
I managed to put my house up for sale at just the wrong time. It’s been a chaotic few weeks, with the UK government’s announcement of tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest in society with no clear plan of how that would be funded spooking markets big time. The pound crashed against the dollar, the IMF issued an uncharacteristically blunt statement basically saying that it was a stupid plan, the Bank of England had to immediately commit to buying £65 billion worth of gilts (government bonds) to stabilise the markets before pension funds collapsed. This also led to interest rates on mortgages rising sharply. All of this on top of the cost of living crisis and I’ll be lucky to sell my house anytime soon.
I’ve spent so much money directly and indirectly on preparing for this house sale that I’ve had to pause my Vanguard investment for October. I don’t recall ever having had to do that before, but my bank account needs shoring up with cash. It might yet be that I need to sell some of my Premium Bonds to add more cash to my current account.
One thing I did learn during September was a more accurate value of my house. I’d estimated £165,000 and that’s the figure I’ve been using in my net worth calculations. It’s been officially valued at £170,000, so my net worth spreadsheet has been updated to reflect that, although it does give an artificial £5000 boost on paper. When you exclude my pension and house, the drop in net worth of over £6500 pounds shows what’s really been happening in the markets, with my index funds being down around £5000 compared to last month.
Despite all of that, I had a positive savings rate, so I’ll take that small victory in these turbulent times.
