April 2020 was for me a month of full confinement. That gives interesting results in my spending. I stayed again in my self imposed budget. Actually, I used the confinement to spend more money on other items than I would usually do. This will be a clear attention point once we go back to a new normal.
Budget
I stayed within budget and had even 95€ over at the end of the month. The money stays in the account as I typically have a month or 2 per year where I go over my budget. (Last year July I went 500€ over budget!) So, this is extra underspending is a nice thing.
WOOOW 60 pct of the budget went into household. That is a lot.
I did one big shopping in the Colruyt of almost 200€. I was a little shocked when I heard the amount to pay. That day, I bought Cava as I had no more at house, garbage bags, stocked up on frozen pizza and cleaning products, the ecological version: they are 10€ per bottle.
One other big shopping spend was in an ecological shop with new shampoo and conditioner driving the bill up.
Restaurants were low this month. That is not hard to do when they are closed for going out. We had some deliveries of sushi, vegetarian and some Mexican take out. Not frugal, yet, in line with wanting to enjoy life now. Cooking is fun, having food delivered to your door as well.
Let’s look at the trends
The expenses seem to compensate each other. I guess that is the case with most people. I now also cook more at home, I buy more fresh food and I focus more on biological food. That drives up the household expenses.
This month I also bought garden material. I used the time with my kids to rework the garden and seed radish, carrot and a lot of sun flowers and wild flowers. More on that in a later post. You see that in other.
Amber Index
The amber index did well this month. It went up again.
As explained before, my amber index has too low of an exposure to the stock market. I am working on that.
The reason for the increase is the follwing
- Extra inflow of money from the refund from my electricity company
- The goldminers did very well in April
- I made nice profit with my option trading.
Did you have some special confinement spending?
amber tree leaves 
Tss food deliveries, frozen pizza’s … (have a gues who is eating healthy for once in his life and is being all arrogant about it!)
I just put March up and April will be following but her is a sneak preview: I only spend 75 euro in April. Being lokced in is damn cheap. We should make it an annual thing!!
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Well done staying within budget. I always struggle with that. And yes, quite some expenses reduced but especially groceries went up drastically. My company will only start allowing working from the office as of June so for the next month, I’ll still be working from home.
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SaMe here. I do not think I will go back to the office in June. My oldest has probably no school in June, So, those weeks, I will work from home anyway
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