Just the usual income of State Pension and Suffolk County Council Spouses pension and some interest from savings (and if the Labour party abandon the triple lock for pension increases, they'll be losing an awful lot of votes - I don't think they'll dare do it)
Above all the usual expenses there were just two known extras in September.................. DiL's Birthday and Amazon Prime. The unknown extras were for the repair place for sorting the car tyres, some camping gas cylinders and a wind-up/re-chargeable lantern..........just-in-case.
The usual regular monthly outgoings were for Council Tax, charity, phones and broadband, monthly electric bill and diesel that came to £390. I topped up with diesel twice, didn't really need to but I found the Co-op garage in Stowupland was several pence cheaper than my local one. Everywhere is now creeping to £2 a litre. I wonder whose fault this is??!
Personal spending was low, only exercise group and a haircut, the Elvis dcuk and chocolate rabbits.
Other spending were mostly small things, except for getting the gutters cleaned....... there hasn't been a good rain since to see what difference it's made. Food spending already mentioned. Organised YGDs birthday pressie ready for October. Then I got sunflower hearts and suet blocks for the birds and stocked up with paracetamol and ibuprofen for bad weather. Small spends for kitchen bits and washing soda crystals. The window cleaner came - thankfully, as the gutter clearing had made a mess of some windows and then someone told me I had a brake light out so it was back to the repair place where Ashley soon got a new bulb in for just £5. Also found a few useful things from car-boot sales which will be blog posts later.
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| image from google freepik |
A few penny-savers
- Beetroot from BiL's garden
- Eating apples from my small trees
- Last of the tomatoes from greenhouse
- Peppers from greenhouse into freezer
- Gift of pears from friend
- Last of the courgettes from garden
- Bread loaves from bread machine
- Only doing one or two lots of washing each week
- Only use dishwasher every other day
- Lots of days not going out so not spending
- Free postage at Lakeland so I sent for a pack of their good quality freezer bags.
- Reading library books for free - no books bought.
- Make sure to always get the in town parking fee refunded by spending £5 in Asda
- Made up a tin of pre-prepared oranges to make 6 jars of marmalade.
I must check out Lakeland again, free postage makes it more attractive. Years ago I used to spend a lot with them and never had a failure with quality. Sometimes a bit more spent is a good investment.
ReplyDeletePenny
If you are on their email list at Lakeland they will email every now and again with free postage offers but they only last for a couple of days
DeleteI'm hoping that there won't be too much hysteria over the change to a double lock. This still allows for a minimum increase of 2.5% or inflation - whichever is the greater. Those who are have private indexed linked pensions get no increase when inflation is 0 (as it was for several years) this change still means the state pension will rise at those times. Of course the polarised factions will be whipping everyone into a frenzy but this really isn't the worst thing that could happen and we do need to be able to start diverting some funds towards care.
ReplyDeleteThe energy price increase is the frightening thing announced for winter.
DeleteIt looks like you are counting your blessings Sue, as you list the things saved. As for the pension block I am not quite sure how to take it.
ReplyDeleteI guess it's just wait and see what happens and hope for the best
DeleteI had a few penny-savers too - picked the I don't want to get bigger cucumbers, a bowl of yellow cherry tomatoes (froze the latter), some of my eating apples. The Cornish Aromatic were teensy though.
ReplyDeleteLike you, worried about energy prices - and diesel prices. Off to hold the fort at Tam's today as Jon has been REALLY poorly with Laryngitis and had to be taxied into Aberystwyth last night to see the OOH GP (£34!) and couldn't get back again as Taxi's stopped, so stayed at his mum's house. She's in Spain. . .
Hope Jon improves after seeing GP, hope you don't catch anything nasty
DeleteI worry about social care 'free at point of entry' does that mean they will come after your estate after your death, in which case we would be losing, we are already the poorest pensioners in Europe.
ReplyDeleteYes, a point Andy Burnham made himself and stated he wants to address. I have often felt that social care and health care should be dealt with in harmony with each other so I shall wait and see the finer details of what is proposed before deciding whether it is a good thing or not. So far all the press seem to be doing is picking out certain parts of his speech with either a positive or negative spin according to their political leanings.
DeleteI hope to leave money to my children but goodness knows how that will go in the future
DeleteMy husband filled up the car last week and it was already £2.10 a litre here. Goodness knows how high it will go.
ReplyDeleteOh No! already over £2. That's bad. I feel my outings will be curtailed in future
DeleteI always enjoy reading your small savings list.
ReplyDeleteI’m trying not to panic about this pension/care thing, the media have a lot to answer for it feels.
Alison in Devon x
Hopefully no unexpected expenses in October - fingers crossed
DeleteMy car needed two new tyres to get through its MOT plus insurance so September was an expensive month. Apart from that it was food and fuel rises that really challenged my budget. Catriona
ReplyDeleteSon just had 2 tyres for his MOT too but it did pass so that's good. The monthly electric bill seems to sneak up - think I'm watching too much TV!
DeleteI'm not too concerned about the triple lock reverting to a double lock, it will at least mean a rise most years. Pensions have thankfully risen by quite a bit since the triple lock was brought in. The care system really does need an overhaul as there will a lot more pensioners coming into the area of needing care in the next few years. I am of the opinion that Andy Burnham is doing a good job up to now, but we will see how much of what he promises will come to pass. But you can usually trust a Mancunian. ;-)
ReplyDeleteHopefully Double lock will be OK not as bad as abandoning it altogether. Did I hear the 2027 - 2028 price rise will be honoured and that is a good chunk I believe.
DeleteIt is good to see cost of living retirement pensions increase as day-to-day costs are on the increase.
ReplyDeleteFuel costs (oil, diesel, gas) are still increasing in the US with no signs of stabilization. This seems to be a common problem worldwide.
Susan
Double or Triple lock - I sometimes think I'll never catch up with my retirement date. They seem to keep moving it further and further away
ReplyDeleteI think we'll still get triple lock next April of around 3.9% I'm on the old state pension and get just £174 per week so losing maybe 1% of the triple lock figure wouldn't be too much to lose if it meant social care could be sorted out properly. My pension will never be enough to live on if I'm left on my own anyway 😏
ReplyDelete