Final check-in:
I ended up spending more money than I wanted to, but much less on the categories I was focusing on than I would have otherwise. We are positive for the month with a bit extra in our budget categories overall. Definitely giving myself a 
for managing to keep on top of things this month.
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Final checkin:
782.47/800 for fun food. I am amazed.
Still panicky about big picture finances - the job hunt continues - but feeling really relieved by our day to day spending staying under control.
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Week four check-in! Wow i am proud of myself for continually thinking about my budget for four weeks straight.
Also, that “tall planter” i bought for my orchids ended up being a lot shorter than i thought (i think my math was off - the dangers of stress-purchasing) but i pulled all the orchids down, replanted them in the planter, and re-attached them to the trellis. I also successfully did not buy more twist ties or the cute ladybug shaped clips for this (turns out you can save your bread ties and it works the same)
This week is going to be a recast though. My “non-essentials/extras” budget was at $94/$100 and i have done five more “dad only wants starbucks coffee” runs this week (I briefly thought about making a “dad hospital food” budget, but it was mentally upsetting to put a dollar limit on that and to think about this being a long-term issue soooooo I’ll just attempt not to stress-buy any more planters next month)
And also officially started the “more monies how?” process
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Week four check-in:
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How is it week four already?!
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This week I joined two DA (Debtor’s Anonymous) forums, and have been lurking there. Once seems more active than the other, so if I do post anything, that’ll most likely be the one. I’ve learned a few things, but I wouldn’t say it’s been an absolute game-changer. I do however accept that it’s probably one of those ‘you get out of it what you put in’ things. Hmmm…
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I have not attended a DA Zoom meeting yet, and am not sure I want to.
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Meanwhile, the fear of maybe needing to attend a DA Zoom group (if I can’t stop myself spending), plus knowing I have to stop spending, has lead to my not spending for (I think) three days. It’s taken a Herculean effort; talking myself out of buying things, but I’ve done it, therefore I can continue the streak.
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And the wish to spend might be easing? Slightly?
Small progress in a way maybe, but it feels positive. I’ll definitely take it.
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Week 4 check-in (coming a little late!). Eating out is at 144/150, squeaking just under my goal. Groceries are at 221/250.
In terms of bigger goals, this weekend has been crazy and I don’t have the mental capacity to look at my sinking funds and budget goals tonight. But I’m setting aside sometime tomorrow to do it, so hopefully I can update this later.
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Final check in! I went over in some categories, mostly due to not realizing lumpy things were due to be paid or spending now because it would save money in the future (pullups on sale - definitely buying them instead of waiting until next month). I was going to be super far under the grocery budget for the month so I did a big Costo stock-up ($182 and still under budget for that category!). However, I’m still under budget overall so it’s overall a win!
I also met my goal of recording all items purchased, including all grocery items.
| Category | Oct Goal | Total |
|---|---|---|
| Travel | $0 | $0 |
| Cleaning Lady | $300 | $300 |
| Rec Center | $0 | $0 |
| Charitable Giving | $60 | $52 |
| Life Insurance | $75 | -$8 |
| Subscriptions | $75 | $37 |
| Student Loan | $532 | $0 |
| Mortgage | $2,379 | $2,379 |
| Electric / Gas | $112 | $112 |
| Internet | $55 | $55 |
| Costco ann fee | $120 | $120 |
| Home Improvement | $100 | $346 |
| Home Gym | $0 | $0 |
| Southwest ann fee | $0 | $0 |
| New Technology | $0 | $0 |
| Amazon Prime | $0 | $0 |
| Enrichment | $100 | $63 |
| Judo | $50 | $122 |
| Medical | $400 | $295 |
| Gifts | $100 | $235 |
| Christmas Spending | $0 | $87 |
| Water | $0 | $177 |
| Trash | $0 | $0 |
| Cell Phone | $0 | $0 |
| Car Registration | $0 | $0 |
| Car Insurance | $0 | $54 |
| Service and Parts | $0 | $0 |
| Tax Prep | $0 | $0 |
| Photos | $0 | $65 |
| Coffee Shops | $50 | $25 |
| DH Fun Money | $25 | $0 |
| E Fun Money | $25 | $77 |
| Household Items | $75 | $35 |
| Date Night | $100 | -$28 |
| Clothing | $0 | $86 |
| Books | $30 | $0 |
| Toiletries | $30 | $36 |
| Hair/Massage | $0 | $0 |
| Baby Sitter | $0 | $0 |
| Baby Supplies | $50 | $118 |
| Uber | $75 | $76 |
| Gas | $100 | $83 |
| Groceries | $700 | $675 |
| Dining Out | $300 | $229 |
| Other | $0 | $0 |
| Total Spending | $6,018 | $5,902 |
| Goal | $6,200 |
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I so want to post our final budget but just know there’s a few other costs trickling from accounts that have a few days’ of delay in syncing AND random shit breaking around the house. 
I’m setting a check-in reminder for Nov 1!
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Check-in! We’ll have one or two more things probably coming in, but that shouldn’t wildly swing things.
We were under budget on groceries, but not by much – by about $50. So, I’ll take that.
Eating out was over budget by $30, and I anticipate another $40 in the next two days tbh. So, $70 over. We had one week that was massively high, and I’m going to look over this again and think through balancing our desire to not spend tons of money eating out with our desire to see friends and acquaintances and to be generous with friends when we do go out.
Alcohol spending was way under because Wizard hella stocked up last month. The budget I randomly selected seems to be a generous one, though, so that’s good.
On the other hand, he’s well spent over on games again, so I think that budget is not big enough.
I spent a little over on crafts this month, but on target for the year, so that’s good.
Miscellaneous went well over because in addition to Wizard’s graphics card, we got some fancy Halloween costume supplies. We at least now have some awesome pirate gear! and I have leggings I can wear a lot.
I’m continuing to get a handle on our combined finances. Man it’s harder though!
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Week 4 Check-in and month review
I’ve managed to reduce how much I eat out by a LOT and now I have some yummy and simple lunches figured out (and somehow I’m also on top of doing dishes more than ever??).
I’m proud of all the work I’ve done to learn the ins and outs of my debt and also wrap my head around some inheritance money that’s headed my way. I feel a lot less anxiety about my money (or lack thereof) and I’ve avoided a bunch of retail therapy compared to this time last year.
When the shock to my finances happened last month I had a really bad time for a few days but I talked it through with friends and family and it became a lot less scary. And now here I am, able to sit down with all the numbers and talk about them and I’m not running away, wildly purchasing things as a distraction. I feel like I have something of a plan and (surprisingly) I don’t feel worried about this smaller budget.
I feel some hope and some confidence for the first time in a while.
Happy Halloween everyone!!!
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We ended up spending 450 on clothing, taking us to 107% of the total year’s budget. And I still haven’t gotten a winter jacket. 2024 budget has been adjusted to take into consideration the real need for replacement clothing.
$422 on groceries, but also take into account that we were gone for a week and that food went into travel budget. There were several splurges, mostly in line with my values, so I’m ok with it.
At the end of October we are at 70% of our ‘day to day’ budget and 83% through the year. We will blow past our professional services budget with the money we’re giving to the financial planner, but since that is one-time, I won’t worry about that.
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Budgetober stream today
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Final check-in: I spent $103.36 on groceries this past week, putting me juuuuuust over my budget of $450 for the month. Probably it was that Halloween candy that put me over. 
Anyway, I’m really happy that I was able to predict a reasonable goal based on past months, and basically stick to it. I plan to continue what I learned this month to have continued predictability in the grocery department in future months.
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Week 4
| Amount | Purpose |
|---|---|
| $6.99 | subscription (Paramount+) |
| $423.77 | grocery |
| $24.88 | pet (medicine (insulin)) |
| $22.59 | auto (gas) |
| $17.81 | misc home goods (holiday lights) |
| $401.00 | pet (appt/vax/full senior blood panel/ear flush) |
| $533.00 | optomotrist (my lenses are high index, very expensive) |
| $1,430.04 | total this week |
| $3,451.60 | total this month |
Goal: $4,000
Stretch Goal: $3,500
Finally went to the warehouse club for a big stock up - some of the stuff will last me a few months, so the next trip will probably be $200 or less (unless I really splurged). No propane delivery still (tank was at 58 on Saturday) - the cold has really set in, so I’ll have to call next week or the following for a delivery, still, this is the latest I will have gotten a delivery so far… but part of the reason is that I got an end of season fill-up in June, so it all averages out. We had G’s vet visit yesterday, no meds purchased yet, we are waiting on the bloodwork results, so that will be part of November expenses - will likely start her on an NSAID (long term) and maybe an antibiotic (short term), depending on her results. My glasses also finally finally came in - I have a high, difficult prescription and there were some shenanigans with the lens manufacturer that caused them to take nearly 2 months to come back. I should be able to get $110 back from insurance (fingers crossed, but we’ll see) and I’ll probably claim the rest from my HSA this year. Nothing like spending almost $1000 on the last two days of the month.
So technically I made my stretch goal. I almost even made it below that $3000 pie in the sky goal, if the optometrist had not called today! (I wasn’t going to wait, my prescription changed and I really wanted them ASAP!) But I still did not look into the car servicing or repainting at all. I wonder if I need new tires this year (maybe). I might have some upcoming medical expenses in November as well (unknown how much). And there will be a propane delivery in November, I can’t possibly stretch it out to December. I might change internet providers in Nov or Dec which will cut that bill. G’s meds will be not insignificant in Nov as well. I very badly need a high quality raincoat too (mine is no longer waterproof, REI sale this week?). I spent almost nothing on discretionary items this month, which skews things.
Soooooo… ultimately, I don’t think monthly goals are that useful for me (though it is good to retest this periodically). Because I will always have some months that are lower and some months that are higher, because of lumpy expenses, having a hard goal isn’t that helpful. It is important for me to track to see this though. In this case I ended up just a bit below my year to date monthly average, and I suspect I’ll close out the year right around there, maybe a little lower than last year, which would be a net positive because of inflation.
ETA: LOL oops, actually I am a bit over that 3500 goal because I forgot about the $76 in dog kibble I bought early in the week. Oops!
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I’m learning what utilites are in the new house and OMG I miss living in big apartment buildings. The last two months are since moving into this 550 square foot free-standing studio, compared to the past 8 years of living in 750 square foot apartments on the third floor (with good insulation) 
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I am spending considerably less than what was our half of the utilities in the old house, and it’s more comfortable, too.
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Back from my trip, which ended up being 29 days.
Spent $1736.54, or just under $60/day. That was because I shared gas and lodging costs with my sister for much of the trip, and spent almost nothing on food (and nothing on lodging) for nearly 2 weeks while staying with my friends in Colorado.
Technically I probably spend another $3-5/day if you count the snack foods I bought at Costco in late September (IIRC I spent about $100 on food across two trips), but I’m gonna call it good.
Now I am back and starting to panic a bit at how I am going to pay for my house renovations + living expenses over the next 5 years. I should have cashed out some of my brokerage investments in July when the markets were up, but did not know then that I would be buying a house so soon. Now my brokerage is down over 25k, plus the $50k I already had to withdraw to buy the house in the first place. Owie. I may just go get a mindless retail job to pad the coffers a bit (while hopefully not messing up my health insurance situation too much), Still contemplating getting the real estate license but need to figure out if there are ways to get a realiable, not too high but useful income from helping my agent and others with various transactions.
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Final check in!
Eating out was $347 so under budget including treating folks for dinners.
Gas ended up being $252, so two dollars over, but that was I think because I lent my car to friend a couple times over the course of the month.
I got myself $300 of new clothes, but honestly it was really stressful and one of the places I ordered things from got really complicated so I’m hopefully not going to need to buy clothes again for a while. I know it would be better to just go in person instead of ordering online, but I really hate trying on clothes in dressing rooms.
This month was so busy and weird, I feel like I wasn’t as focused on the budgeting as I would have liked to have been. And also, upon reflection I think I have my spending and budget dialed in pretty well that I could stay on or under budget without really paying attention. So I guess that’s cool?
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Final check in:
Electricity 66.25
Car 114.87
Groceries 267.35
Eating out 244.30
Misc 79
Gifts 85.39
Husband 222.44
Medical 25.98
Me 85
Kids 84
Total 1274.58 surprised it’s so high as I don’t feel like we did that much but it’s low compared to last month where we spent $2k just on flights for a wedding. Guess inflation plus toddler eating more and mew baby has pushed eating out way higher than it used to be. Glad I took part as it’s been very helpful.
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Final Check-in!!
I clocked in at $3,200 recurring + $3,171 variable expenses, for $371 over my estimated budget of $6,000! That’s with a recast 
for unexpected car expenses 
There were a few unexpected circumstances that tipped us over:
- unexpected friend in town (+$100+ in eating out / buying him lunch)
- buying $150+ in glucose monitoring supplies
- buying more expensive groceries (+$100-200) more suitable to managing gestational diabetes)
- pre-paying for an escape room for next month ($108)
… but honestly I think we just need to budget more because we’re going to… also have a baby soon!?
This was a VERY useful exercise because now I have an idea of what a “normal” month’s spend looks like plus the sorts of emergency cash that we need to keep around.
Breakdown
| Expense | October Cost |
|---|---|
| Mortgage P&I | $1,607.18 |
| Groceries | $857.48 |
| Property tax + protest fee | $804.85 |
| Utilities (incl. Internet) | $510.19 |
| Restaurants & Coffee Shops | $448.40 |
| Health, Vision, Dental Insurance | $382.70 |
| Baby Supplies & Costs | $286.74 |
| Doctor & Pharmacy | $238.27 |
| Hobbies & Entertainment | $168.57 |
| Home Improvement | $166.56 |
| Home, Flood, Umbrella Insurance | $157.08 |
| Gifts & Donations | $141.92 |
| Car Service / Registration / Insurance | $111.16 |
| Home Supplies | $76.18 |
| Gym & Equipment | $75.00 |
| Food Delivery | $73.67 |
| Mobile Phone | $57.55 |
| Gas & Fuel | $50.49 |
| Home Services | $49.52 |
| Clothing | $33.73 |
| Fees & Subscriptions | $30.05 |
| Lawn & Garden | $28.75 |
| Printing | $19.54 |
| Software & Electronics | $15.16 |
| — | — |
| TOTAL | $6,390.74 |
do I still get stickers even though I went over tho 
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YES it’s about the check-in habit not about perfection!
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