Do you know where all your money goes?
Written 12th July 2025
Do you know where all your money goes?
I do.
Not off the top of my head, but it's all logged in my budget spreadsheet.
So here are my costs for 2024
Total spend on running my life : £24689.00
Of that, here's a breakdown of the main spends :-
Transportation (including buying a second hand vehicle) : £7700.00
Food (for 2.5 people) : £2296.00
Pub / meals out : £1121.00
Holidays (cost of holiday plus money spent while away) : £1548.00
House & garden maintenance and improvement : £3300.00
Household bills : £4587.00
Clothing : £52.00
My vice : £1400.00
Gym : £367.00
Personal bits (hairdressers, dentist, toiletries, medicines etc) : £321.00
Birthday / xmas presents : £425.00
Interest / Bank charges on anything : £0
Other (everything else) : £1572.00
Is that a lot? Or is that quite a small amount compared to most people's expenditure?
One thing can be said, every penny I spent was only for the actual thing I bought, no bank charges, no interest payments, no spread the cost monthly charges.
I have not included the £36pa I spend in current account bank fees because I get back more than that back in cashback.
When was the last time you looked at your whole life running costs over a year?
Even on a high level, if you know your take home pay is x, and your household bills are y, then where is the rest of your money being spent? How much did you manage to save?
Are you spending £10 a day on food and drinks for a work day? If the average person works 5 days a week and 47 weeks a year, that's £2350 per year spent just on your work lunches / refreshments. If you are average Joe, thats probably 10% of your take home pay. Plus, if you look at my numbers above, that's roughly the same as I spent in total feeding 2.5 people 3 meals and all drinks a day for 365 days....
So using the work food example above, if you made your own lunch for work, took a flask of coffee, or a reusable water bottle or a soft drink from a supermarket bought multipack, you could probably easily make your work lunches for half that figure if not less. That would give you £1000 or so 'extra' to play with. That's a weeks holiday. That's a lot of pub nights out. That's money you could overpay your mortgage with. That's money you could pay for your car insurance in one go with (instead of paying for monthly and paying interest). That's a nice TV. That's a load of clothes. That's a new stairs carpet. That's a new washing machine. That's money that could be added to your pension pot and saved for your retirement. Etc etc etc.
Instead of not going for the convenience option and not making your own work lunch.
And that's just one area where you could save a bit to give you more money for things that would enhance and improve your life.
You can do it!!
LFx
