As I’m writing this I’m a few days away for the big trip 100 miles away to a family wedding – Indian style! In case you don’t already know, I’m Sikh and my husband is Sikh Punjabi and aside from two small weddings (one of them our own) this is my first ‘proper Indian wedding’.
I’m very hot on budgeting and tracking at the moment, I mention some of this in my podcast Episode 12 Let’s talk about money!
If you haven’t been to a wedding of this style before there are a few things to consider: the build-up starts the week before, a week of meeting, greeting, food eating. For the rest of the family going up early, there are two celebratory days, for each of those days they require a suit and the wedding day they have a suit for the ceremony and another for the reception afterward.
All together four suits and of course the hair, makeup, bling to go with it. I’m doing things simply, I wear a Dastar anyway, minimal makeup and thankfully my sister in law is a dressmaker and I got tons of suits from our wedding to use (another tradition marriage=suits, some you may never wear). I also have pretty dresses for our daughter given to us as gifts as she is less than a year old. That has made the whole process cheaper and easier, there’s also this unwritten law where I have to look nicer than my mother in law?
While I don’t have to pay out or organize some things, here are the things that I am budgeting for:
£120 Hotel already paid for – Aparthotels was a great find!
Planned spend:
£30 Supermarket snacks for journey/hotel
£40 Make up
£75 Petrol
£50 Service stations and extra money
£36 Parking at the hotel
£20 In fiver notes for Sagan (a gift to bride and groom)
Total: £251
That’s quite a lot! Considering it’s a wedding, not a holiday, let’s see how well we did:
Actual spend: £167
£12 Snacks for trip
£4 nail varnish
£30 petrol
£7 drinks at services
£15 hot food at services
£25 parking
£50 petrol
£16 missing flip flops
£20 flip flop replacement (me)
Total leftover: £84
Money made: £20
We were under budget and I got some too! Here’s a basic break down, I got our snacks for the pound shop before we left, I bought nail varnish because the Gell nails I got a few days earlier fell off. This hasn’t happened before and usually, I rave about them though it was a busy day in the salon and I feel they were rushed. Kindly we got a family discount on nails and my make up was paid for me too, that’s a blessing (and a saving of at least £40). My
I even finished my 40 Days of meditation for prosperity on the Wedding day!
Even though I tracked this trip, the numbers are still fuzzy, it’s incredible how free-flowing you feel on a trip away- anywhere. Even the £50 on petrol I’m questioning did it really go solely to transport?!
As we left the hotel and were ready to go in the carpark a little down the road, husband T forgot his flip flops and because we were finally in the car with baby SK, I refused to go back, who leaves there flip flops under a sofa anyway? I gave him the money towards a new pair and when we came home my Havanas had broken after 2 years of use.
What did I do with the rest of the money? How did I make money too?
I saved it of course!
I saved a some into a Christmas fund to use for leisure and gifts at the end of the year and £40 into savings for us to go on days out.
I made money through being a part of an Indian wedding where I pretend to put eyeliner on the groom and best man. Yep really.
I did all this through using the card and App Monzo (this is not sponsored, only sharing my experience), it has notifications of spending, you can photograph receipts and add tags too. It’s helped me see what I’ve spent and gone over what the money went on.
I use it for food shopping mostly, that way money isn’t getting wasted or just mysteriously goes. There are saving pots on there and it’s easy to transfer to other accounts. I’m a month in and I’ll report back more findings soon!
Do you have any helpful money hacks you’d like to share to readers? Write them in the comments below!
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