The Seventh Budget of the Year in Review

As we start a new month, it is time to share the seventh budget of the year in review, I can not believe we are already in August, where has this year gone? I always love sharing these posts (+ videos) because I love encouraging other people to budget regardless of your financial circumstances. The month of July was just as interesting as the month of June where I overspent in the variable categories but funny enough did not overspend overall, I actually spent less than what I had budgeted overall.

Often people complain about how restrictive budgets are and this is a major reason why they choose not to budget. This is funny to me because budgets are guides made by you for your financial situation, so if it restrictive then its because you made it restrictive. I see a lot of people copying other people’s budgets which the essence is not wrong BUT the application is, you can not follow someone else’s budget to the letter when you have different obligations in life. Make your budget fit for your life.

The Seventh Budget of the Year in Review

When I started sharing my ‘budget of the year in review’ series, I knew that not everyone would be comfortable talking about their finances which personally I think we need to get past. The only way we can improve is by facing the finances head on, learn from others, adapt what works for you and then do your thing. The seventh budget of the year in review highlights how I spent my money from all sources for the month of July. I love to budget because I give myself the permission to enjoy my money by knowing in advance I have money allocated for fun and how much.

Looking through the seventh budget of the year in review, I feel like this is a great example of how even when things don’t go to plan, you can still enjoy your money, pay your bills and save for your future. For the month of July, I overspent in miscellaneous (budgeted £100; actual spending £325.10), eating out (budgeted £70; actual spending £192.40) and holiday planning (budgeted £75; actual spending £85.45). Even though I overspent in these three categories in my variable spending, I still underspent overall by ~£70. This was all possible because I managed to underspend in 7 of the 11 categories.

As you can see by the screenshot above, I underspent in the ‘expenses’ categories but overspent in my savings which is a good thing. You want to spend more of your money saving/investing and less on expenses and this is why I love budgeting. I follow a zero-based budgeting which simply means my income minus my expenses equals zero, this does not mean I spend everything but rather all my money had been assigned a job. Check out the side bar for the July close-out video which explains my spending and reasons I overspent in some areas.

Other Posts You May Have Missed

For the month of July, I only shared one money focus post and it was ‘smart ways to build an emergency fund‘ which I am still proud I shared. If the last year has taught us anything is that not having an emergency fund is not a smart move and most UK adults wouldn’t survive a month without a pay check. The idea behind having an emergency fund is to ensure that should anything unexpected happen you will have the money available to spend on those unexpected expected expenses.

I shared the information below in my June review post and will continue sharing them moving forward as I think it is important for people to get into investing even with just $10/£10.

1. Investing – I recently started using Freetrade and got a free share for signing you. You can get a free share too by using my link. If you already have an account, you can use my E’toro link to sign up for an account with them at no extra cost to you and get $50.
2. Saving – I use an app called Plum which is connected to my main spending account and rounds up all my spending plus following the rules I set, it helps me save money for 52 weeks.

This is all I wanted to share in the seventh budget of the year in review, whilst I overspent in some categories overall I still underspent which is only possible because I budget and subconsciously I know where I overspend and where I should underspend to always stay within budget. Do you budget? How do you track your expenses?