December round up

Be warned this is my boring post, loads of spreadsheets and stuff. 

I only spend a small amount this month, items to make the dice, December is always a low spending month. 

I did spend more on clothes this year, but my spend is so low I am not worried, I don't impulse purchase anything any more, making everything last longer. Total spend this year £275.34. I did not spend any money on cut flowers, only £36.97 on Christmas ornaments and hardly anything on books. I have purchased loads of good Christmas cards at half price, I will pack them away with our decorations. 

We did not realise our TV was not compatible with our satellite dish, so we have had to replace it with an ariel, costly again, but the picture and sound are now perfect on the TV. No other big cost. Our heating has been on more, it has been very cold, our boiler was changed a couple of years ago and with the new windows, we do have a warm house. 

My end of year stash spend, I did not get below £1000, which is £83.33 per month, but I did spend less than the last 3 years, included in this was 2 bigger spends for the garden totalling, £245. I'm happy with this last year, I have been using up much of my stash on many crafts, giving me less spend here and more money in my pocket. 

This list shows what crafts I am spending on, they change as I change, I won't get any more glass fusion or card making, once I have used my stock I will no longer do these crafts, I have enjoyed both, but I no longer get the fun from them. 

In the garden I have my composter set up and a large black dustbin full of leaves in hope of making leaf mulch, our council have stopped collecting the garden waste bags, you now need to buy a wheelie bin and pay for collections, which I decided to opt out of, we did not have space for another bin in the front of our house, and I feel strongly about having to pay to have garden waste collected, the council sell the collected material on to be made into compost, so why should we pay for the service. We have considered asking to replace both our council bins with slimmer ones, but as yet not made any decisions, our bins are only ever half full on collection day. The cost of my composter and black bin will be recovered in the savings in under 2 years. 

My weight at the end of this year is more than I wanted, but I'm not a heavy as I was 2 years ago, so I will take it as a win. Hubby and I will slip back into losing weigh in January, but I do need to walk more, hence the purchase of an expensive Fitbit.