Baby incidentals:
Tylenol - $10.66
Sunglasses - $21.91
Board book - $8.99
Baby flash cards - $19.75
Play mat - $131
Total $193ish
Takeout: $878
Barely under budget
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Final check in:
124.89/240 on eating out
136.90/162 on meal prep service
235.81 on groceries
Total: 497.60/550
Made it under budget! Tracking the average cost of the meals I ate in each category helped me understand and be more intentional about the tradeoffs I was making (variety/convenience vs. price). Thanks for this challenge!
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final check in:
groceries: 600/502 absolutely incredibly over budget in all food categories
restaurants and treats: 285.88/200
patreon: 25.09/18 no change
physiotherapist: 51/51
donations: 100/100
hobbies: 30.54/50
personal/household: 512/400 forgot to plan for sisters birthday, got her flowers
streaming: 31.13/30 disney plus, youtube, nyt cooking (canceled this)
house cleaner: 141.75/140
therapy: 35/35 still need to do my reimbursement, but the charge will be 35 afterwards
reflection: well i have discovered that i am spending way more on food than i thought i was, which is probably why everything has felt really tight! i want to keep going with the meal service, so I’m going to have to figure out how to work my other groceries in around it. also I have a lot of food in my house that i should be eating. I know that I can spend way less on treats and coffee, so I think my November budget goal will be to bring that back under $50.
other than that i’m okay with all the other overages (mostly in personal/gifts). I have like a supplemental emergency fund amount ie “oh shit” and it will cover the extras. i am very impressed that I only spend $30 on hobbies. since today I went out and bought fabric and yarn and immediately used my whole hobby budget for the month on Nov 1 
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Reminder to check in today to get your badge!
Form for stickers will follow shortly; stickers will be mailed out on November 13th to everyone who filled out the form.
If I missed your check-in and you didn’t get the final badge let, please @ tag me in your original post - it was an accidental oversight!
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Final check-in. Not counting Husband’s food on his conference trip this weekend, because it’ll be reimbursed by work (likely to make a little on the per diem, actually). I am counting pet food and general household with the grocery.
October 1-31 grocery spend: $312.83
October 1-31 eating out: $186.14
Total: $498.47
Ok, so, what I originally wanted to do was compare this to last year’s challenge and to Snackuary 2023 so I can see any food cost trends. So here are numbers from 10/22 and 1/23 for comparison
So, we’re holding steady on the overall, but the eating out is trending up. That’s lunches at work for him, I think. Almost never more than $6.14 (oddly specific price it often is), but 2-3 times a week. Not yet up enough to worry about, though, I don’t think.
It’s all higher than I want, but I remember paying 50 cents for a loaf of bread - food is going to cost more than I want forever.
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Haven’t spent any money since Saturday, which is good.
Joint = $1398.83 / $4588.89 (some pre-tax; some already taxed).
We put a lot aside for annual and greater expenses, like renovating the basement into a suite and fixing drainage around the house.
Personal = $771.65 / $665.51 (hoping for that Avast refund)
So, if Avast hadn’t charged me $120 CAD for their services, I would be in the black in Personal…just. I still have work to do in Personal, I think.
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ok, final check-in! I ran out of steam last week, but we’re gonna finish it!
Spending is tracked, YNAB is up to date as of last night!
Savings rate spreadsheet is up to date! I will have a 50%+ savings rate this year unless a miracle occurs and I can get all the cats herded to redo the roof this year. Most likely, it will occur early-ish next year. If it happens this year, my saving rate will still be positive, but very low.
I’ve got calls out to contractors, but no actual project estimates 
Also, by paying more attention to what is actually happening in the budget, I decided it could be worth it to work a little on my grocery spending if I can shift that savings to my new climbing gym habit, so that’s something to look at going forward. Historically I didn’t think that the effort to savings ratio was there, but since we’re committed to the climbing gym now, that could make it feel worth it.
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Here’s my final check-in. Came in under budget overall but over budget in groceries, clothes, and babysitting, notably.
Summary
| Monthly Budget Items | Monthly Spend | Monthly Budget | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Required expenses | |||||
| Nanny | 1948 | 2000 | |||
| Preschool | 300 | 260 | 40 Class gift | ||
| Mortgage | 1303 | 1303 | |||
| Electricity | 157 | 135 | |||
| internet | 40 | 40 | |||
| cell phone | 30 | 30 | |||
| Groceries | 1110 | 800 | Included $200-$300 on DD’s bday party food | ||
| Pharmacy | 0 | 20 | |||
| Household (includes diapers/pullups) | 121 | 100 | diapers/pull-ups, new coffee maker, light switch | ||
| Clothes | 274 | 100 | DD shirt, DH flip flops, DS winter coat, DS snowpants, DS pants, shirts, DH sweaters | ||
| Gasoline | 197 | 450 | |||
| Parking/tolls | 30 | 20 | |||
| Work accounting | 170 | 125 | |||
| Medical copays | 40 | 100 | |||
| tractive | 8 | 8 | |||
| Things that enrich our lives | |||||
| Gifts/charity | 44 | 100 | DD’s bday gifts and gift for friend’s party | ||
| Toddler Outings | 0 | 80 | |||
| Shopping | 26 | 80 | birthday favors (18), halloween ghosts (8) | ||
| Gym | 89 | 89 | |||
| kindle (bookclub) | 0 | 15 | |||
| youtube tv | 10 | 10 | |||
| Things that give us a break | |||||
| Babysitting | 280 | 150 | saw local football game, MTN bike ride, help before bday party, rainy day away, afternoon bike ride, Halloween party | ||
| Housekeeper | 160 | 160 | |||
| restaurants/fast food/ice cream | 264 | 250 | Dominoes in a moment of weekness, girl’s night out, date breakfast, pumpkin spice lattes, Mexican date lunch, crumbl cookies, hub’s costco meals, hub’s sandwiches, sushi night | ||
| Monthly | 6601 | 6425 | |||
| Annual Budget Items | Monthly Spend | YTD Spend | Annual Budget | ||
| Required expenses | |||||
| Car Maintenance | 113 | 1651 | 2000 | oil change Prius, air filter | |
| Insurance (Home, car, umbrella, camper, my life insurance) | 0 | 3372 | 3400 | ||
| Nanny’s workmans comp | 0 | 1019 | 650 | ||
| Property taxes | 0 | 2700 | 5400 | ||
| Oil | 245 | 1398 | 2000 | annual furnace cleaning | |
| Propane | 71 | 409 | 450 | ||
| Home Improvement | 1186 | 12967 | 1200 | patio furniture, stump grinding, septic pumping | |
| Malpractice Insurance | 0 | 1109 | 1109 | ||
| The dog | 0 | 686 | 1000 | ||
| Hair cuts hubs | 0 | 125 | 175 | ||
| Me hair cuts | 0 | 220 | 220 | ||
| Me state licensing | 0 | 208 | 208 | ||
| Things that enrich our lives | |||||
| Conferences/CEUs | 0 | 0 | 500 | ||
| Work supplies | 0 | 366 | 200 | ||
| Concert tickets | 0 | 150 | 200 | ||
| Swim/ski lessons | 0 | 510 | 700 | ||
| Summer camp | 0 | 274 | 275 | ||
| Hotels/air bnbs | 0 | 1647 | 1300 | ||
| Camping fees | 0 | 1982 | 2000 | ||
| Sports spending | 64 | 7085 | 1000 | camelback bladder, bike park fees | |
| Annual Totals | 1679 | 37878 | 23987 | ||
| Total monthly spending | 8280 |
I am so cranky that since I don’t pay for excel anymore I can’t make my graphs the way I want anymore I have tried THREE graph programs now
Anyway here’s my stupid graph that does not look the right way
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Budgetober Stickers will be shipped!
Please fill in this form by November 12th to get your FREE sweet sticker reward
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@anomalily making sure you saw my final check-in as requested 
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Late because we were traveling but final check-in for all of October spending. This is for two people, although I think partner also paid for some things (subscriptions, etc) with his US credit card that I don’t have a record of. But otherwise this should be pretty complete for monthly expenses!
In total we spent $2,146 in October.
We also spent ~$2,250 on a week-long trip that started October 27th, in addition to the travel expenses below which are for two weekend trips taken earlier in the month. So including that (which does include part of November) we spent $4,396
Tracking for the month confirmed a few things I already suspected:
- We spend a lot of money on traveling
- However, our daily expenses in Egypt are really cheap, especially groceries which came in way less than I was expecting
- I feel like we spend a lot of money on eating out/food delivery/Ubers because we pay for those things way more often than we ever did in the US. However, because they are all pretty cheap these totals still seem pretty reasonable!
- I still don’t know where a lot of our cash goes which is annoying but I also just have to accept it!
Total spending in Egyptian Pounds (LE)
Groceries: 3,897 ($127)
Eating out: 7,611 ($250)
Transportation: 1,640 ($53.50)
Arabic class: 3,500 ($114)
Other: 1,420 ($46)
Rent: 17,000 ($554)
Utilities (gas/electric): 1,268 ($41)
Travel: 3,730 ($121)
Cash withdrawals: 11,912 ($389)
Note: We withdrew a total of 23,000LE in cash this month. Bigger expenses paid for with cash are included in the categories above, the remaining 11,912 is what is unaccounted for including a few thousand still sitting in our wallets.
Total spending in USD
Subscriptions/streaming: $15.49
Other: $99 (new shoes + birthday gift + bank fees for transferring money)
Travel: $337
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Do you want to get Microsoft 365 Personal for ~$15 for a year ($22ish for Family)? I have a friend’s & family pass and can get a license at that rate if it was a budgeting issue!
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$15 a year is really tempting. I only need excel once a month 
and I have tried everything else nothing else formats them the way I want
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So I’ve been keeping up with my notebook (goal for budgetober!), but not keeping up with posting to the forum (how to participate in budgetober). Updates incoming
Week 3 Update
As I alluded to in my last update, in my fever state I made some poor spending choices, as well as some I wasn’t aware of til a few days later when I got shipping updates. One morning I woke up to find I had subscribed to youtube premium at some point and have zero memory of doing so. I need my phone on airplane mode next time I’m sick.
I also need to keep an eye on kickstarter shipping- it really creeps up on you! I got charged $19 for shipping for puzzles I backed months ago! This isn’t a complaint, I was fully aware how much shipping would be and that it would be charged closer to the shipping date, just need to come up with a way to note that or earmark that money for later so I’m not surprised by it.
Also no more ordering fall or winter stuff- I have so much of it from last year AND plenty for next year.
Will need to make sure I go through and cancel these random subscriptions. Here’s a photo of my notebook:
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Week 4
Look at me- 3 days of no spending! I went to Michaels and only got exactly what I needed for a project I was working on. I went to an art supply shop on vacation and managed to resist buying stickers, cute memo paper, and a new fountain pen! Okay, I did buy a notebook, but Midori never does fun covers and I have a specific use for it (taking a sketchbook class in November).
I did have a few fails this week:
- Yoseka Stationery did a beautiful collab with Traveler’s Notebook and I okayed myself to buy that. It was $14, but I fell into the stupid trap of “well as long as I’m ordering I should see if I nEeD anything else”. I don’t need anything, but I especially didn’t need those new mattehop gel pens that just came out. Instead of spending $19 on the insert & shipping, I spent $60. Get it together Possum!
- Simply Gilded got me with their warehouse sale. I need to use what I have so that I need less albums, not more. Also did not need journal cards, but I did get a TON of my favorite thing they have- those little samplers for $15 (they never do mystery bundles of those). I’d be less mad at myself if I just bought the sampler bundles, but with the cards and albums on top ugh.
- LPD was a planned purchase because they had TN insert covers coming out which I’ve been moving towards and her covers are top notch. However, after the yoseka & simply gilded fails, I should’ve just passed. Also added vellum to that purchase that I could’ve skipped.
Some highs and lows this week, but hey gotta celebrate the small wins, it’s a step in the right direction.
and as a bonus. Here’s Malcom from St. Louis Art Supply who came out to say hi and could care less about traveler’s company:
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Week 5 / Budgetober Wrap Up
So I’ll save my November comments for my journal, but the last two days of October were fine. No spend on Halloween. I’m a little annoyed with myself about Monday. It was the last day to use reward points before they got rid of the system. I had a $25 off and $10 off coupon. I should’ve let the $10 one go since you can’t combine them. I was trying to get my cart as close to zero as possible, but still have to account for shipping so I wound up spending $27 total. Was it worth it for like $60 worth of stuff? meh.
Anyway overall, I’m happy with myself for actually writing down my spending and reviewing it each week. I am going to continue this into November, but try to focus more on the less spending part. I also learned a bit about my spending habits from writing everything down and also became aware that I needed to make some time to review my subscriptions again. While I didn’t meet all my goals, I think this Budgetober was a success because I just needed that little nudge to start writing everything down. I’m working with my OT on small goals and one thing at a time so we got the writing piece down. Next step will be to unsubscribe from marketing e-mails (looking at you Simply Gilded), cancel some subscriptions, and go through my patreon subscriptions.
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@anomalily final check in. my name isn’t on the form so I can’t fill it out the stickers were the real motivation for writing things down lol
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I am on mobile so i can’t fix the Form right now but I will layers stickers getting mailed tomorrow
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REMINDER TO PLEASE FILL IN THIS FORM SO I CAN SEND YOU STICKERS TODAY AND TOMORROW!
@possum @chavala @a_hardie @Unwinding @letired You have all been added to the form so if you haven’t filled out because you weren’t on the form, please do.
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