May seemed to come and go in a blur of bank holidays.

I made the most of the long weekends and the decent weather – all fence panels (front and back) have been wood stained and I even did a paintjob on a pallet my sister was about to throw out:

Also an achievement of sorts for me – I’ve managed to somehow keep the poinsettia plant I bought at Christmas alive. I buy one every year for the festive period, and usually, all the lovely red leaves drop off one by one and I’m left with a dead plant by January.  This time however, I noticed that a few leaves were resolutely clinging on, so I continued to water it and then noticed that new leaves were growing!

Whilst my garden is looking quite green with early summer blooms, my veggies don’t seem to be doing that well; the spinach bolted (for the first time) and my tomato plants don’t look that great (started off some more seedlings to see how those will go). The courgettes are looking so-so, my spuds might be ok, but let’s see.

Update is later than usual and I blame the sunny evenings and weekends, which had me spending more time outside, less indoors on my laptop (wi-fi isn’t great in the garden!).

April started off well with an evening out at the darts to witness teenage sensation, Luke Littler trounce seasoned pros – so cool and calm for such a young lad! This was my first time watching darts live – we knew what to expect, it was rowdy, noisy (a lot of singing which we took part in), the beer was expensive and the testosterone in the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife, but it was a fun evening!

Packed on a school night

However, the month didn’t end so great as I had various major repair works done on my car, which came to a total cost of £1,718.93.

Ouch! I was expecting a bill of at least £1k and my heart sank when they gave me the full quote but hurrah, my emergency funds came to the rescue! I need to focus more on topping it up to replace that big chunk removed.

Anyway, how did my numbers look for April?

I saved 15.8% of my net salary. The above includes £46.52 from doing Prolific surveys and £12 Grand National bet winnings.

Shares and Investment Trusts

Dividends and Other Income