August 2024 Savings, plus other updates

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Another blur of a month – busy at work, busy socially.

After it all ended, I felt like I had Olympics withdrawal symptoms; I had found watching all the different events just a great way to wind down – well done to all of Team GB for their efforts. I’m currently tuning in to the Paralympics.

Some good news for me this month was that the Bank of England’s base rate was cut from 5.25% to 5%.  As I am on a variable mortgage rate, my mortgage payment will be lower in September. The 0.25% I am now saving will be put towards my mortgage overpayment.

Green(ish) Fingers

Despite only garnering a single cherry tomato and a few potatoes as the sole fruits of my gardening labours so far this year (more to come, I hope!), overall I’ve been pretty happy with my efforts.

My flowers and shrubs have really bloomed this year and I’ve been doing a fairly decent job of keeping on top of the weeding and watering. I just stick a podcast on or listen to my favourite tunes and a pleasant afternoon passes by as I potter around the garden.

Aside from the paint I bought for the pallet, I’ve not really spent much on the garden this year; got some free seeds and plants from friends and did my own propagating (mostly successful) to get more plants.

Next year, I will need to spend on some bigger pots/re-potting, as some of the plants are fast outgrowing the pots they are in.

My indoor plants have done well too (pesky fungus gnats aside!) – got some lovely blooms on an orchid I bought nearly 3 years ago – only a few flowers last year, but it sprouted 14 flowers at the same time this year!

Anyway, how did my numbers look for August?

I saved 18.6% of my net salary. The above includes £59.64 from doing Prolific surveys, a £5 charity lotto win and £63.78 OddsMonkey referral fees (yes, I am still getting them, so thanks whoever!)

Shares and Investment Trusts

No change here.

Current share/IT portfolio can be found here.

(Entire portfolio here)

Future Fund 

Some volatility in August paused the rocket’s trajectory but things didn’t look too bad by the end of the month, just slightly down at £278,868.07.

Dividends and Other Income

A decent month for dividend income:

I received £646.88, of which £380.06 was from my ISAs, the rest from my SIPPs. All dividends were reinvested.

Here’s the progress on my ISA dividend income:

Goals Update

What about the other goals?

One goal achieved already!

As I couldn’t commit to work’s charity walking challenge this year, I made a bigger than usual charity donation by buying a big bunch of raffle tickets. Some very decent prizes on offer so I hope I win something (draw in September).

Am behind on my reading so need to stop watching tv and get some reading done!

And that’s it for August.

Hope you all had a great month!

15 thoughts on “August 2024 Savings, plus other updates”

  3. Hey, don’t know if you’ve gotten on top of them, but the only thing I ever found that worked for fungus gnats is those sticky yellow things you put into the pots.

    If you kind find the pot where they’re mostly hatching from, it should solve the problem eventually.

    Macabre though 🙁

    Re your chart, nice, floating along in a balloon isn’t so bad now and then! 😉

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    • Hey TI

      Cheers and agree, the balloon isn’t so bad!

      And yes, I do use the yellow sticky tags as it does seem to be the only effective way. If they buzz round me, I use the handheld hoover on them!

      And yes, the tags are a little grim and macabre!

      I can see me at some point only have orchids, since there’s no soil for the gnats to burrow into!

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  5. Raffles can be surprisingly good in terms of return – particularly at small events. A tenner or so invested sometimes sees a return in terms of prize value much higher than that, plus it is usually going to a good cause.

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  6. My wife used to find that the secret of winning at raffles was always to take our young daughter with her. I don’t think I can draw a general rule from that though.

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  7. Hi Weenie,

    Although it feels like forever ago I felt withdrawal from the Olympics too. I love watching pretty much everything (except Boxing and Basketball). Luckily the Diamond League Athletics afterwards, filled the gap a bit and now we’re back to the football season.

    I love tomatoes but give up growing them outdoors, I really need a greenhouse to see if it’s more successful. My attempt was a grow bag on gravel (slugs hate it) with copper tape around it (slugs hate it) and still the slugs infiltrated my defences. I have a decent sized garden and a lot of fruit bushes, which are really successful and need minimal maintenance (blackberries, raspberries, gooseberry’s, red/black currents). Plus the birds like them. I see you mentioned a pallet, what did you make? I’ve got some building work about to start and 3 pallets getting in the way on my patio from supplies deliveries.

    Also very behind on reading. Started well at start of the year, then my role at work changed (more work obviously) and now have trouble focussing which I need to address.

    Well done with financial targets, keep on keeping on 🙂

    Reply ↓

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