Beads, budgeting (revisited) and bangles

It was the start of a new month, one that should have seen me both step onto that Bead Wagon & try out a new skill (more on that later)... well that Bead Wagon must have been going way too fast to stop to allow me to step on it, as I succumbed before breakfast with a big purchase (but great bargain naturally - see photos below) and I finished the day with Goldmine's Critter Crawl... oops!

1 bangle!

2 bangles!!

3 bangles!!!

A'hem... my only saving grace and escape from eating beans on toast for the rest of July is I also scored a bargain on my car insurance renewal, so my beads & bargain have at least been paid for without resorting to raiding my boiler fund - my favourite back of the sofa place for unexpected bead indulgences!

So given I've had a narrow escape on a month of eating beans... how is it all going on the budgeting front?

It all started with this post and as I blogged the progress of the May bead embargo I set myself some very challenging goals.  Given a bit of reflection, and a bit of spending, I've figured out that those goals were a bit too challenging... time for a rethink!

As comic timing would have it - Victoria over at Endangered Trolls just alerted us all to a UK retailer sale as I was writing this... go here for details!

So for the next 6 months, including all the unplanned/unexpected spending I've done for the "didn't get back on the wagon" in June and the "the wagon didn't stop long enough for me to get on it" in July I'm aiming for a total spend of around 5% of my net income, from my originally rather harsh target of 1.5% per month!

Although as I've spent a lot of that already, ironically what's left is about 1.5% per month - it's going to be a tough year!!!