The good news is that if we were not having the extension built our income exceeded expenditure - always a good thing. Paul did do some work last year but our main income is from bank interest so this will be plummeting in the coming year. I did add a little to the pot with one significant scrabble prize-money win.
Our expenditure was also fairly significantly below budget.
We have three holiday budgets - bridge, scrabble and other. No 'other' holiday this year (well, we are permanently on holiday) was our major saving, but Paul cheated on his bridge holiday budget by offsetting his Pau trip against 'other' so that his overspend looks less than mine!
We spent very little last year on household maintenance - no major disasters that needed work done to fix. I also did my bit on gardening - very few trips out to garden centres/nurseries and no binge ordering plants online. This year should be more expensive though getting the new back garden developed.
Also a very cheap year on clothing - no mad shopping sprees. Gipson family pact also helped on our gifts budget.
Other than tax (booh!) our only major overspends have been the cars - the cost of petrol last year being a real bummer and extra servicing/maintenance.
If I remove the depreciation of the value of our cars from the year on year report we actually spent less than 2007.
The significant movers and shakers were:
Bills: the cost of heating oil and we had our septic tank emptied
Healthcare: Paul needed new glasses and we now have a dentist
Holidays/Household maintenance: See above
Leisure and Entertainment: I didn't buy myself another emerald bracelet :(
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