Checking in a touch late, because I managed to injure my ankle on Friday, and had to have an X-ray today. Luckily only sprained. I’m still not particularly mobile, but thank goodness just got lots of physio to do, and no cast. Big relief!
Looking forward to the live-stream, bcos it will undoubtedly have advice I need.
I found some places to get support for my overspending this week (which was one of my goals), but still haven’t called them. Bit of reluctance. And also they both look like paid places, which, yeah. That said, I have arranged some other support, and managed to get the info for my ankle very quickly. So. I’ll take that.
I share my monthly personal budget on my youtube channel.
I track my spending, debt pay off, and investing. Then the next month I review my spending and plan my next month’s budget.
I might use my savings and move it to my Registered Disability Savings Plan and rebuild my emergency fund because I need to make sure I get the maximum $10,500 in disability savings bonds and grants.
Hi, I’m glad it’s not too late to join! It’s been a weird month so far and I thought I’d missed this.
I have three budget goals for this month:
Keep eating out to $400. This includes my brother’s birthday dinner and going out for Halloween, so the amount feels a little high but I think is a good, reasonable one.
(This one is kinda counter-intuitive) Put in the effort in to spend $300 on nice clothes that are comfortable and feel good to wear.
My closet is full of cool things that fit me five years ago and then the grungy clothes I wear for working outside so getting dressed for not outside feels crappy most days. I hate clothes shopping, so this budget line is more about making myself spend than reining it in.
Keep gas spending under $250. I live 30 miles from my job but if I plan ahead, I can take a bus some days. I’ve gotten out of the habit of that, though, so I want to get back to it and giving myself a lower gas budget will hopefully help!
Week one check in:
On track! $75 so far and that includes two meals out with friends that felt lovely as well as a breakfast sandwich/drink to start out an 11 hour work day.
$111 on a coat! It will replace one that hasn’t fit me right since college (so over 10 years ago) and I’m really excited about it.
One tank at $53, though I’ll need to fill up again tomorrow I think, so that will probably double. I haven’t ridden the bus yet, it’s a new goal =)
Checking in for week 1. COVID throws wrenches in everything!
So far we are on track to stay in budget for most everything. Unfortunately, being unable to leave the house is a great way to not spend money eating out! Hrghghgh.
You can check in anytime between now and Monday. Feel free to write out your expenses for the week in detail or simply reflect on how your financial week went.
Once you check-in, you’ll get the second chapter of this year’s Budgetober Epic Story as a Badge as soon as myself or another mod has some time to add you!
Checking in early since I crashed early last night and am therefore up and far more conscious than I need to be right now:
Target
Oct 1-7
Oct 8-14
Oct 15-21
Oct 22-28
Oct 29-31
Total
Remaining
Food
300
120
41
161
139
Electric
75
0
47
47
28
Hobbies
30
19
0
19
11
Health
50
13
15
28
22
Cat
230
122
0
122
108
Travel
NA
0
0
0
NA
Gifts
NA
68
12
80
NA
Technically $25 of food was for a work thing that’ll be reimbursed, but keeping here for tracking purposes, and other than that nothing too interesting. Although after waking up yesterday and finding it to be 54 in the house (main level–the basement is pretty consistently mid-60s regardless of season) I did turn on the heat so I expect the electric bill to start going up next month.
I got ice packs! It took me a while to find them in the weird tiny Target that’s in my neighborhood, but I found them. I was able to bring lunch to work for 2 of the 3 days I worked in-person this week. And, very serendipitously, my workplace got a bigger fridge on Wednesday!
I spent $732.90 this week, leaving me with $892.63 for the next two weeks. About $490 of that spending was paying the credit card bill I mentioned last week. I still need to mentally reserve $227 for my HOA check at the end of the month, so really I have $665.63 left for my needs. Not a bad week.
Week 2!
$351/800 fun food budget
…Maybe another $60 that hasn’t synced to YNAB yet
I feel good about this. We’ve been eating out more often - partner & I are job hunting and we’ve been having late afternoon/evening interviews to accommodate time zone differences. Feels like a good tradeoff to me!
Mom offered to pitch in for the party so we let her cover drinks, which we got at Costco anyway. Win! Going to need to ask in laws how much they spent on decorations so I can cover that, though, so might even out in the wash
Balances:
$145.50 groceries
$98.51 restaurants
$150.00 personal
$38.89 clothing
The struggle to stop spending on restaurants is about to get real. Today is date night and it’s my turn to pay, so much of what is left will be used up, but there are still two weeks left in the month.
Joint
$43.81 Groceries - total groceries = $122.81
$17.19 Vacation - lunch on ferry - total vacation = $152.19
$136.78 Household Miscellaneous - lampshade, sheet set, facial tissue, sheet straps & bedskirt pins - total household = $136.78
$85.00 Medical - physiotherapist + I forgot last week’s assessment at $98.00 - total Medical = $183.00 Total Joint for week 2 = $292.78 Total Joint to date = $594.78
Personal
$33.45 Clothing - semi-formal top - total clothing = $111.45
$92.00 Art/Business Materials - yarn and roving = total Materials = $92.00
$33.50 Miscellaneous - 2024 Planner - $20 gc + $13.50 cash - total planner = $13.50 Total personal for Week 2 = $158.95 Total Personal to date = $236.95
Notes
Hubby has to submit claims to insurance for reimbursement on the physiotherapist. I expect a 50-60% return.
I overspent on Business Materials. It was a spur of the moment decision to attend a nearby annual fibre festival. I don’t need more fibre!
Groceries: $40.84 (plus probably like $20 more that my partner hasn’t entered yet)
Internet bill: $80.72 - will be split with 2 other people
Fun stuff: $102.05
Total: $223.61
October total so far: $1625.03
Still feeling pretty good about this month. Grocery spending has been really low this month & last month. I just haven’t felt like cooking or eating anything in what feels like forever. At least being tired after work is helping me keep costs down?
On the fun side, I ordered some notebooks this week! I got a Leuchtturm to start using as a commonplace notebook and the Hobonichi Cousin came back in stock at JetPens this morning, so I ordered that & now I’m all set for next year. I never thought I’d get a Hobonichi because they’re quite pricey relative to the planners I’ve been using for the past few years, but after lots and lots of research I’ve decided that the Cousin will work well for me & bring me much joy.
Items still on my Budgetober to-do list:
put together a spreadsheet for calculating savings trajectories
Checking in everything is fine nothing to see here nope
Food budget: $535/$800 so…significantly over where I should be by this point in the month wheeeee
Misc budget: $130/150. As you can see, I did not do a no-buy lol that was a cute thought
Also the universe totally took this as a challenge, so I unexpectedly needed to get a new hot water kettle We’re good now, universe, right? Right?
week 2 check in!
groceries: 331.74/400 I’m trying a new meal service and this includes charges for last week and next week.
restaurants and treats: 153.81/200
patreon: 25.09/18 i forgot about a substuck sub
physiotherapist: 34/68 weekly copay
donations: 25/100
hobbies: 18.27/100 2 in-app purchases for the silly phone game
personal/household: 24/400
streaming: 0/30
house cleaner: 141.75/140
therapy: 0/70
unexpected expense: 153.18 pre-payment for cat sitter for a trip in November. This will be paid with money from November, I didn’t realize I had to pre-pay.
I will have to do my re-set next week. food is way higher than I thought, which isn’t surpising. I haven’t updated my food budget at all in the last few years and it shows! I’m also getting my hair done next week, so I’ll wait to see what that actually costs before I do my re-set.
this week I really wanted to shop. i think i filled like 4 carts at different stores last night but didn’t buy anything! I let myself add whatever i wanted to the carts so the totals seemed so unreasonable that i didn’t even feel tempted to hit purchase. like i’m never going to buy $1000 worth of stuff from LL Bean, but filling the cart was a fun pretend shopping spree.
week 2 checkin! I was sad and upset all week and did an absurd amount of Online Shopping and unfortunately did buy some… but it’s mostly 2024 planner “expenses”, so.
eating out:
$54.63
(Domino’s once and then my sip club subscription)
education misc electronic stuff:
$103
(Wires and a laptop case)
pipsticks sale:
$65
(shipping,)
vinyl stickers:
$33
stickii advent calendar:
$117 (one of these is a gift but the other two are ALL FOR ME!!!)
Food $354.61/725
Local Food $0/100
Transportation $32.54/75 (I don’t think this is right–I think there’s a gas receipt missing)
Pet $0/200
Household $169.94/120
(one of these is a gift but the other two are ALL FOR ME!!!)
