My monthly expenditure has increased by $200 since my last review a couple of months ago, mainly because of two things:
- My decision to spend some money on some SEO support for my main blog, over at revisesociology.com, and
- My increased costs of mobile phones/ internet access.
The former is OK by me as it's an investment in what should hopefully be more traffic and thus more revenue a few months down the line, and the later, well, that's just essential.
In total I'm spending currently about £2080 a month, which is more than I'd like, but entirely acceptable given my income.
I've opted to break down my expenditure by broad topic areas this month:
- blue = house and land
- red = work related
- yellow and green = basic expenditures
- pink = others/ mostly non essentials
Housing and Land...
- £650 a month on the mortgage - which is OK - I'm probably going to start overpaying this soon, but I wouldn't count this in my monthly repayments as these would be lump-sum pay-offs, and will result in my regular monthly payments coming down. The mortgage payments are no hassle, I've got the place rented out which nearly covers the cost of mortgage.
- Insurances - basically all to do with the house, renters and life assurance, I really should look at getting the Life Assurance cancelled, I'm sure it's a waste of money?!?
- £240 for cabin rental and bills - A bargain for what I get for the money!
- £40 for land expenditures - Because I haven't been going to the land much, I've spent a bit less this month, instead I've been making hay online, literally while the sun shines!
Work related...
- £260 on tax, which is tax owed from last tax year, and that's me taking advantage of Covid-19 situation - well I really didn't earn as much from the blog so it's absolutely fair enough. I've increased this by £30 a month from last month as I want to start putting some buy, slowly, to pay next months bill - I'd like to be just paying it off in a lump sum once a year like I used to, so I'll probably look to up this to nearer £350 a month from October, which is when my main income should hopefully be back up to normal!
- £150 - SEO expenditure - I opted to invest in some SEO support - bit of a gamble to get my Blog/ website ranking better on Google and I'm really hoping this will pay dividends - ideally at least treble what I'm spending every month for several years down the line.
- Subscriptions - it costs me about £40 a month to pay for my blog and sales hosting, not bad at all, hopefully this will increase when traffic and sales increase later in the year!
Basic Life Expenditures...
- £140 on Food - standard
- Car sub - £60 a month towards the upkeep of the car, I've got some put by already so this will have to increase, again from October.
- £80 Fuel - I've done a lot less driving the last couple of months as the land has taken a back seat - turns out that 'not going out' is quite the money saver!
- £60 on mobile connections - I now pay £10 for my English line (thank god this is so cheap!), £27 for my Portugal Internent unlimited access, and another £15 for a Portugues phone number, I've also got a MEO connection on standby - as that's what I'll need to have Net access on the land, so this might go up to... £80. FFS, I will need to rationalise this at some point!
Other...
- £70 - Beer and lunches - it's been summer, it's been a bit boozy, what can I say, not going to beat myself up about this!
- I've got a Netflix connection and the rest is just odds and ends, maybe one too many Casa China visits (East central Portugal's version of Poundland) for tacky stuff to tackle flies.
Final Thoughts: OK for now....
My expenditure is up, but I don't feel is the dreaded 'mission creep' type of increase, it's due to the increased cost of the mobiles, which I always knew MIGHT be a thing, my choice to take on a new SEO service which I can cancel at anytime, and also my decision to up a few of monthly 'sub' expenditures to build up more of a buffer.
Compared to what I'm earning ATM this is below what I'm currently bringing in, so happy dayz.