Official November goals:
I’m so grateful that this is a facepunch-free zone, because my numbers are high! I’ve been looking at my recent spending; we’re averaging $863 a month on groceries and $552 on takeaway and eating out. We’re two adults and a toddler. Groceries includes household stuff; I can’t be bothered breaking that out so we track it all as one.
Please note that these are Aussie dollars, and costs are higher here, so while the numbers are high there’s no direct comparison possible with the US.
November budget:
I think these are goals that will require a bit of work, but are still achievable for me.
I figured out that what is causing me stress is that I am so behind in what seem like insurmountable tasks. A lot of my record keeping and filing and stuff are at least 6 months behind. My room is stacks of stuff that need to be sorted. Laundry and papers and everything. I can reduce stress by tackling these things. Every day in November I will do one thing to catch up on my backlog. If I commit and am kept accountable I can have it all done by December. Watch me.
I could EASILY spend half your dollars on one person. So since you have 3 they aren’t crazy. Easily as in could also spend more. And my country touches other countries that touch other countries which must make things cheaper
Thanks Elle 
it’s reassuring to know I’m not completely wacky with my spending.
Your spending is not wacky. October happened to be a nice low month as I was spending down a big supermarket chain gift card I’d got for 5% off with the entertainment card so none of that showed up in my grocery budget. Plus I get some fruit and veg from my volunteering gig when there is excess, which definitely helps. $700-800 a month on groceries for a family of 3 in a HCOL city in Australia is not too shabby 
(Although I would suggest trying to nab those 5% discount gift cards for the two supermarket chains if you do shop there at all?)
Goals for this month are focusing mostly on the holidays, although I’m going to keep food and home improvement from last month.
$600 for gifts–Some of this spending may bleed into December, but I have four family members with different opinions about thrift store finds and homemade gifts than I have to find things for, plus we usually do a giving tree for a local nursing home through work and a couple angel tree type things through volunteer organizations (and after some literal junk was turned in because some people are creeps, they instituted a rule that anything for the kids has to be new-in-package which rules out doing things like buying bulk art supplies and building individual ‘kits’ or putting together collections of like-new condition books from the thrift store).
$0* for travel–Obviously not going to get a plane ticket for $0, but want to find flights that are completely reimbursable through travel vouchers/credit card points
$300 for food–Keeping it under $250 (barely) last month took a lot of watching…I still think that’s a lot for food, but I’d also like to know what’s reasonably easily sustainable.
$100 for home improvement–I actually want to make sure I spend this much because I want to get some of the bigger projects done around the house
And I forgot to say–goal for this upcoming week is finding those plane tickets, because I’m flying to near-middle-of-nowhere and there aren’t a lot of options for flights in and out in general, never mind ones that I might be able to get with points.
Let’s set some goals:
Groceries: $160
Eating out: $100
Misc spending: $200 (this includes all non-food, non-bill spending. For now this is going to include Lyfts but in a future month I may break that out separately.)
Cat expenses: no spending goal, but will track expenses. (Seriously, you guys are going to be violently ill when I post my spending in this area)
After thinking on this for a while, I have some goals for November:
My goals for No-Stress November:
Get a source of income other than OMD #1 goal. I am applying for jobs right now, after 11 months of working for just myself. Ready to work for someone else to take the stress off OMD.
Meal Prepping - I’m going to try out actually meal prepping. I’ve never been much of a prepper, but my schedule is getting more hectic and my motivation is lower to cook things in the evening. This honestly will end up costing me a little more because I’ve been eating cheap and easy foods (like pasta or a single sweet potato) but I’ll be eating MORE FOOD which is good. It will also lower my stress so it fits in perfectly.
Overall I want to spend less than $145 on groceries in all categories this month, which is my usual.
One marketing task per day - hear me out about why this is budget related. I need more income, generally, for living expenses and less stress. This is the time of year when books sell a LOT. But I need to market. So, I have a list of marketing tasks, each taking less than 20 minutes per day, and the goal is to do one every single day. So that I make more sales = more money.
Pre-plan ahead my Cyber Monday spending on skincare - I know I’m going to buy skincare on Cyber Monday, because I usually stock up during sales. This is my biggest consumer stress point, skincare. So I will research what I need to replace, what I am willing to try if it’s on sale, and will not go over a pre-planned budget.
I’m in. Will be back this weekend to read more about it and figure out my goals.
Unlikely for anyone who has any pet whatsoever.
Already spent ~$325 on groceries and it’s only 2 November!! 
we went to the bulk shop this morning and stocked up on unpackaged nuts, seeds, beans, oats etc. Soooo staying within $700 this month will be an exciting challenge.
I’m in.
My goals are to work at least a 40-hour week each week, and to avoid eating out unless I am far from home or it is planned in advance (not impulsive). I often work 40 hours anyway, but it can be tempting to knock off early when I am tired or frustrated.
I am not off to an auspicious start. I got a breakfast burrito and a drink this morning from a fast food restaurant because I overslept and didn’t want to take the time to cook, and grabbed a Coke after lunch, too. I did at least eat lunch and dinner at home.
I was off today…my 40 hour week starts tomorrow.
I’m glad I made my goals tracking related and not staying under a limit related because guess what? I spent the first day of No-Stress November stressing like mad about the fact that overnight my dog’s itchiness went from manageable with e-collar to definitely needs to see the vet this week, and I stopped lying to myself hoping that my phone will make it through the winter as-is and decided after talking to folks that I really should replace the battery.
I made a vet appointment and made an appointment to do the phone battery thing, both for early next week. I asked Sweaty to help with the vet bill if it’s expensive, and he readily agreed. At some point we need to have a more holistic discussion about sharing cost responsibilities with the dog, but I’ve got better at least at asking for help when it would be helpful to me and not a burden to him, which is fair considering he is really a jointly owned dog at this point.
For the phone, I really don’t want to spend money on it, but my battery situation is a huge source of daily stress for me right now and it will only get worse as the weather gets colder. If I can spend a little to fix that it should be a win in the medium-run… at least until apple makes my phone irrelevant and it finally makes sense for me to switch brands!
Rant over. Short of it is spending on dog and phone should reduce my stress, and Sweaty is helping with dog, which should reduce my money-related stress!
I’m actually in for this one! I have a pretty easy goal: continue to track my spending. Given the impending life upheaval though (baby inbound soon), this will be more of a difficult goal than ever before. I’ve tracked spending for years, but I don’t want the habit to slip. Especially because Mint has been having issues, it could be tempting to give up (why hello duplicate and triplicate accounts, and the fact that I can only mark duplicates on desktop and I can only recategorize transactions to certain categories on their app right now…).
So, yep. That’s my goal. Continue to track spending, don’t give up.
OH, I suppose I’ll also add “deal with medical bills and insurance as they come up”. It’s so easy to procrastinate that stuff because I haaaaate it.
I spend $600 on groceries for the 3 of us and I make an attempt to sort out any household items when I buy them. So your number seems reasonable to me, especially since it includes household stuff!
So November is only 2 days old so it’s not much of an update
On another note – had a great convo with my 19 year old daughter and she’s looking into opening her first Roth IRA.
We spend as much on groceries - I also don’t break out household supplies and pet food. Right now we are three people, but my husband will be back from training soon so then we will be 4, and we spend about $800-900 month on food, pet food, personal care/cleaning products.
We’ve been using the same system too 
Hoping we can also get into the habit of entering expenses daily so we don’t have to try to remember at the end of the month what we went to the store for three weeks ago.