October 2023 Money Review

After almost a year, I’m back with another money review woo! This is my first full month post-gap year and I’m feeling a lot better about my situation than I did last month 😅 I’d always assumed that I’d find a “normal person” job once I got back from my year of travel but the closer the end got the less and less this idea appealed. I LOVE the flexibility and randomness of the life I’ve built over the past year and I have found a way to extend it and kinda just keep going – temporary seasonal work!!

These types of gigs usually last a couple of months, often come with accommodation included and are a fab way to earn a good chunk of money in a short space of time. So by combining a couple of these a year (one winter season and a summer one) with the various online hustles I do, I’m kinda confident I can keep my nomadic lifestyle up. I started my winter seasonal job at the end of September and I’m very pleased with my earnings from it so far and I’m not even full time yet 🤩

Ok, update done let’s get into my money review for October…

What is a money review?

It is where I share reflections on my finances from the previous month and detail every penny in and out. I find doing this at least monthly is a good way to stay connected to your finances. Plus, I love reading them back in a couple of months!

Why do I share this?

I know it might seem weird to share this on the internet, but I truly believe in creating the type of content that I love, and I am obsessed with seeing what people spend and earn. I also believe that the best way to break the money taboo is to talk openly about it, so here we are! Hopefully you enjoy this type of content too!!

Context

I spent the majority of October living at my parents but I did also spend a good amount of time staying with friends in various places around the UK. I have an arrangement with my parents which means I don’t pay rent when I stay with them. All of this means that I have very low expenses, something I definitely don’t take for granted and am taking complete advantage of – hello 83% savings rate!

Let’s start with how much I was paid in the month of October…

INCOME

Every penny I was paid in October, ranked from the category that bought in the most to the least. This figure is different to money I made in October as I often get paid a couple of weeks/months after completing something.

Seasonal job = £1124.50

About 6 weeks ago I agreed to run a Christmas pop up event for an old employer. This will be my main gig for the next couple of months which will hopefully allow me to save a bunch of money so I can get back on the road next year! I worked almost fully remote (I did one day in person because I had to conduct some interviews) during October but will be moving for this job later this week.

Freelance gig = £345

I do a wide range of random tasks for a couple of clients – from social media management to email marketing to general admin tasks. I invoice my hours monthly so this payment was from hours I worked in September.

Bar Shifts = £325

I spent a weekend at the pub I worked at when I was in uni helping out. Part of me actually misses it so this was a bittersweet weekend. Also not a bad earner for three days of easy work.

Free Shares = £258.94

I earned some free shares from the Webull referral scheme and sold them as soon as I could to get the cash.

Cashback = £45.61

One of my favourite ways to save money when I’m already spending it anyway! This month I was paid out cashback from TopCashback and Shopmium. The best things? Almost £38 came from a purchase I made a few months ago (through TopCashback) and I’d honestly completely forgotten I was due cashback. We LOVE bonus money!!

Train Compensation = £37.16

Damn the train gods did not like me this month!! I don’t think I had a single journey that wasn’t delayed or affected in some way. But you know what that means – more money back in my pocket 🥳 I always make a point to spend those few minutes putting in a delay compensation delay as every penny counts right!

Mystery Shopping = £35

I’m loving iShop for Ipsos and their at home mystery shops! I bagged another one this month which paid me £35 to order alcohol off Amazon. I ordered a bottle of disaranno which came in at just over £12 so I walked away with £23 in profit and a bottle of my favourite booze! If you’re aged 18-25, jump on this fab scheme!!

Surveys = £26.86

My favourite low effort, in front of the telly hustle!! The majority of my survey earnings came from Prolific as always (there is still a waitlist to join this site but it’s sooo worth it!) and a few quid from the daily polls I do.

Playing Games = £11.01

Oooh this is a contender for my favourite low effort, in front of the telly hustle! Playing games is exactly how it sounds, I get paid to play games through various apps/sites. I only earned money this way through the app Skedadle this month. They have recently changed how they work and you no longer have to be on public transport to make money so I’ve finally been able to take advantage of it 🤩

Bank Interest = £2.40

Interest is always a nice, completely passive bonus! It’s obviously not going to make me rich (too much of my money is tied up in investments for this to ever be a decent income stream for me) but every little helps right!

TOTAL = £2211.48

Holy shit!!!!! What a month!!! I haven’t had a month this good in over a year! I’ve definitely missed having a solid income stream.

Next up, let’s discuss what I spent money on…

EXPENSES

Here is every penny I spent across the month of October. Once again ranked in category from most to least…

Food & Drink = £142.47

Anything I spent on something I either ate or drank is included in this one figure; groceries, restaurants, takeaways, coffees, meal deals etc etc. Staying at my parents has meant I’ve been eating a lot of their food which is always a nice perk when you go home, right!!

Transportation = £122.59

I took a lot of trains this month as after being away for months I wanted to spend quality time with my favourite people!

Entertainment = £83.29

Includes Spotify, books and any outings I went on across the month. One weekend I headed down to Cheltenham to the Lit Fest and it was sooo lovely! Obviously I couldn’t go to a lit fest and not buy books so I did end up spending over £30 on books. But then my journey down there was so delayed that I ended up getting almost all of this back in compensation.

Health & Wellbeing = £3.49

This was for one purchase of a mega sized body wash for my family.

Work = £2.99

I detest having to pay for iCloud storage but I like being able to send emails so here we are.

Shopping = £2.50

I bought some socks.

TOTAL = £357.33

Pretty reasonable month for a frugal gal like myself. I got a high joy return from the money I did spend so very happy with the end totals.

Hold on a minute!! You got paid over £2k and spent under £400 – what happened to the rest of the money??? Lemme tell you…

SAVINGS PROGRESS

At the start of the month I devised a new income system as I was getting overwhelmed about what to do with each payment. Now I have set percentages that I send to the four main finance categories in my life – 50% to savings, 20% to spends, 10% to retirement & 20% to taxes. I also had a to send a little money to my credit cards as I spent a little more than expected on my Italy trip 😅

So whilst my savings (including retirement) in theory should be up 60% of the income paid, this month it was a little less as I was finding my feet 🤩

Here’s what I sent to savings in October…

Christmas Fund = +£300 (hit my goal 🎉)

Emergency Fund = +£332 (hit my starter goal 🎉)

Camp Fund = +£284.37

LISA = +£225

TOTAL = £1141.37

Soooo happy with the amount I saved this month and hitting two of my goals 🙌🏻

In summary October was obviously a very good financial month for me!! I finally feel back in control of my money after a year of living off savings whilst travelling and not knowing what I was doing with my life 😂

How did your October go? Have you done your money review yet?