So as Iāve been thinking about this, I have some edits! I think the pre-made part was trying to get at the real goal, which is less money spent on groceries + healthier food, but somehow I was afraid of just making those my goals? Maybe because theyāre my eternal goals and Iām always bad at them. But a spend goal more clearly gets at the actual spend goal, and for healthier food ā well, snacks are the obvious cut point if I want to hit my goals both in healthy food + money spent.
Reduce overall grocery spend to average $225 or less a week
Make an extra principal payment on the house
Buy tickets for holidays early, i.e. before Chickadeeās birthday
Spend less than $100 on Chickadeeās birthday party, including all food
We currently average $250/week for a household of 3, which includes alcohol + incidental TP etc; a $25/week reduction is therefore a 10% reduction, which is a challenge but not an unreasonable one. This does not include any food spending for Chickadeeās party ā it will get rolled into our yearly grocery spend, for sure, but for this exercise I want to treat it separately.
Weāre so early in our mortgage with such a high interest rate that an extra full principal payment isā¦ not a huge amount of money. Now that the 401ks are filled, Iād like to do this.
Less than $100 includes our present for Chickadee + spending on food for the party itself.
I think I will set my budget to $200 for groceries for the month. I need to use up a lot more of the food we already have, the freezer is full, the fridge is full, the pantry is pretty full too. $50 a week is do-able for us if Iām doing āfill ins,ā that is, milk, eggs, apples, etc. and not buying coffee, meat, or bulk goods.
There are 3 more interactions of the CSA, which I intend to use and NOT count as they were paid for months ago as well.
I was going to just track craft supplies, but I donāt think thatās an issue this time of year, and phase of my life. I have a fully stocked studio!
Instead Iām going to work on groceries and eating out. My birthday and our anniversary are in October. Plus Canadian Thanksgiving. Food is going to be a big issue.
DD#2 and her hubby are coming for Thanksgiving. I will try to use whatās in the house. I will have to buy ham though. No one other than me likes turkey. That means scalloped potatoes too.
I have the ingredients to make pies of various sorts. I will need to buy whipping cream for pumpkin pie. Hubby would be aghast without it. He likes the spray-out-of-a-can kind. I prefer to make from scratch from a carton. Ultimately, time will be the deciding factor. Whether I can do everything and still have energy to visit afterwards.
On top of this, we have at least one out-of-province trip this month that will require eating out. Three days long.
I have leftover money in my canning and food preservation budget I can use for groceries too. But Iād really rather not. Iām saving it for any canning between now and Christmas.
Also, I try to add $150/month to the canning budget from groceries. That cuts into our grocery budget. Groceries includes everything we buy at the grocery store - paper products, etc.
My budget consists of:
$380.00 leftover from canning season (last resort)
$315.00 leftover from September grocery budget
$600 October grocery budget
Total = $915 - $1295 CAD
That assumes I donāt move $150 from groceries to canning. Ideally, Iād like to spend less than $765.00 CAD. I do not know if thatās possible with all the eating out.
Going to try to manage a food budget of $368 because thatās how much is on our SNAP card, I thought it was also getting filled in October but now Iām not sure because my renewal was due apparently a month earlier than I thought, our pantry and freezer are pretty stuffed to the gills and Iāve been wanting to cut back on meat anyway. And if I can manage that low a food budget if more DOES come in in October weāll be well funded for the coming months even if our benefits get reduced post renewal.
For non-food groceries I want to be really meticulous about recording what we spend, looking for deals, and buying the cheap version. Sorry babies, youāre probably not getting primo pampers diapers.
Gas: $150 (hopefully less, but this one is harder to control so Iām keeping it high and hopefully recasting) Groceries: $300 Eating Out: $220 Fun Spending: $163 Clothes: $100 Savings: $650 (maybe more, if I donāt need an oil change before November) Utilities: $340
I havenāt bought some clothes items in years and theyāre wearing out in ways I canāt mend, so Iāve added that this month. I might use some of the āfun moneyā for clothes as well to buy higher quality things if I canāt thrift certain items. This will be a higher income month than usual, so I really got lucky in my timing.
Itās the same as usual. I have to do a spreadsheet. Must do it. Even got someone here IRL who is willing to check it for me (lucky, I know).
Over the summer I cut out almost all subscriptions, and managed to save Ā£600 in three months. Which promptly went on the car last week. But hey, I had it. Otherwise I would have just had to park the car and not use it.
But meanwhile the subscriptions have snuck up again. And the spending on Pokemon Sleep (my main game atm) has increased quite a bit this month.
My money-brain is like: Save money in one area, brain thinks āoh yeah, Iāve been saving, I can afford it!!ā But no, I really canāt.
All of which to say: Itās time to pay attention, and actually face things, and count up the money beans once again. If I could somehow save another Ā£600 by December, that would be fantastic. But honestly anything is good.
I am coming back for Budgetober this year! I really need to get a handle on my finances now that we are in the limbo state of selling our house while living with my in laws. We are moving to France once the house sells and I want to have a handle on our money before we leave the country. So back to tracking everything and doing a new kitten budget for me.
Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love the spooky vibes, the costumes and the permission to eat candy.
Honestly, Iāve decided my budget goal will simply be: get back to categorizing spending effectively, and go back to saving monthly overviews of spending. Since the mint to monarch transition Iāve gotten lazier and more hand wavey about spending tracking. Partially because technology always hates me, and even when stuff is off pending sometimes the categorization doesnāt āstickā. Add to that soooo many transactions, because life Be That Way with busy kids and my husbands increasing work purchasing responsibilities, and I just.:ā¦
But I know it matters
1- MULTIPLE times I have caught fraud when itās in the small test purchase phase because of to the penny tracking
2- just because we have more money now doesnāt mean I should just be wasteful.
3- I like the satisfaction of continuing to do things Iāve done for many, many years.
4- it bothers me that Iāve fallen so apart on it and donāt have really good, reliable granular data to check when something comes up.
I planned our first 3-day trip so we eat a light picnic lunch, supper at a restaurant, have accommodations with a continental breakfast included, eat lunch at a relativeās, supper will probably be light cafe food. Then breakfast at the hotel, and finally, we will have to buy lunch at a cafeteria on the way home. Thereās a few meals in the freezer for when we get back home. So thatās 2 suppers and a lunch. Looking at roughly $75-85 for each supper, plus $50 for a cafeteria style lunch. This is for 2 people. Thatās conservatively $250 CAD for meals for a 3-day trip. Probably closer to $300 with tips.
My goal will center around general frugality with a few specifics.
Cut one streaming serviceāI think I currently have three?
Shop the freezer and meal plan once per week
Keep grocery spending under $350 (this is about in line with what I spent this past month, but we had lots of supplemental meals provided by others)
Keep other ādining outā eating under $100 (this is basically cutting this spending in half. This past month I spent about $200 between coffee shops, etc)
Add $100 into savings at the end of the month
ETA if these numbers look low, itās because I donāt track my husbandās spending. I do most of the household spending but heāll occasionally do a random Costco trip and use his card.
Ok so I have a more precise goal. I will budget 80$ in my eating out category. I will also separate eating out from my āfun moneyā category, it used to be included in my fun money category but I prefer to keep my fun money for social gatherings.
My Budgetober goal is to actually enter my receipts into YNAB within a week, rather than letting them pile up for 2 months like I have been doing most of the year.
I made a lil chart and am kind of alarmed that it is over what I expect to earn by like $2K. At a certain point, I will need the Boy to either earn some money or devote himself to reducing our expenditures. But I did pad this a bit so hopefully we wonāt actually spend this much?
My main goal isnāt so much to guess how much I will spend as to actually do the weekly tracking!
Extracurriculars are a separate budget category because my mom sent some $$ for it, and it is so high because we are going to buy LBās fencing equipment and stop renting it.
OK! Finally refining my specific goals for Budgetober:
No coffee or restaurant spending unless itās with a friend.
No buying groceries - food, spices, whatever - unless I have a specific plan for it THAT WEEK. No stocking up allowed.
No buying stained glass supplies or patterns. I should have everything I need for the particular projects Iām currently working on, and both of those are complex enough Iāll probably be working on them for most of the month.
The only clothes spending allowed is to replace items that have died.
Gratuitous stained glass pics! First one is my first piece actually backlit in a window, and the second and third pics are the second piece that I made of the Boulder Flatirons at sunset.
Gas: $150 (hopefully less, but this one is harder to control so Iām keeping it high and hopefully recasting)
Groceries: $300
Eating Out: $220
Fun Spending: $163
Clothes: $100
Savings: $650 (maybe more, if I donāt need an oil change before November)
Utilities: $340
Iāve been having so much fun learning something completely new to me