Celebrations

We have lived the life of Riley this month, birthday, 10th wedding anniversary, general jollity and it has been fun. Costly fun. I can't say it hasn't been worth it though as we've had such a great time and it's been a really relaxing start to the year.

For the past 8 or 9 years our Christmas and birthday cash has been used for sensible things like clothes, things we need for the house, new tyres or whatever. This year we haven't done that. We bought each other Christmas gifts for the first time ever (£75 budget) and it was a really enjoyable thing. I don't know if we'll do that again for 2013 but it was the right thing to do for 2012.

I spent the last of my gift money this weekend. Maybe I didn't stretch it as far as I could but it has been wonderful to take a year off from making gifts work hard to allowing gifts to be massive treats. Having said that I have 5 new tea towels, a light pull for the bathroom and two new soap dispensers so maybe not all flim flam.

the list - 

2 x soap dispensers £1.98
light pull £1.49
gravy boat £8.50
Hornsea pot with an apple on it £4.95
bracelet £8.95
3 x tea towels and a pair of socks - £15 M&S voucher
woolly hat and grey cardi - £15 Debenhams voucher
ceramic rabbit and ceramic seed head £37.95
mittens £8 
Moomin book £10
cosmetics £7
glittery vest £12.50
dress £4.19
quilting fabric £35.50 (yes, I know!)

DH bought me 2 tea towels from the RSPB shop, a glittery lipbalm, a dvd (a bargain at 99p) and some orange socks for my birthday. Not too shabby. I received bonus gifts from MIL in the shape of a cosmetics set she got as a free gift with some perfume and a jumper that she bought but didn't like but didn't want to return. Good news for me!

The menu plan for next month is done and we're just totting up how we did with the budget for January...