I stayed under budget overall, but a little wiggly in categories.
Gas $126 final
Way under!
Groceries $296
Just under the $300 budget
Eat out $352
Just a little over the recast so all good.
Fun/gifts $187
So last minute, hubband and I decided to go to the Korean Sauna together as a month-end treat and also a friend invited me to Rocky Horror tonight so I didnāt end up saving my $100 for next month. Iāve got more side gigs lined up next month though, so I think itāll more than balance out.
Overall month end vibes: Iām definitely locked in with my lower spend existence to extend job hunting time. My desire to do retail therapy is waning, which is good because I only fell into that habit because I was miserable at work and making way more money than I needed, even with high savings. I do think that once a month Korean Sauna might be my splurge that I plan for every month for myself, then the rest of fun money can be for gifts and such things.
Final check-in!
I interacted everyday except one with my budget this month and will continue this habit even after October. It made me more mindful of my spending!
This was a really good exercise to look at where my money is going! Groceries is pretty much in line with expectations. What was not planned or considered:
Concert tickets for next year - I bought a few shows that I wasnāt planning on.
Donations: did not consider this but need to as we made contributions, and really do this on a regular basis.
Gifts: did not factor this in for some birthdays that came up.
I came in at $50 over my projected budget. I had some categories that were not touched this month which spend in other categories. Eating out I had $100, we spent $15, no pet food spend,
I have built out my November budget sheet and look forward to tracking against the planned spending I have predicted.
As I am shifting into this new life phase it is kind of weird not to be adding to my savings, but relying on the cash I have and tracking my investments.
Ended the month with $234.17 left of the original $900. That feels like a huge victory! I donāt know if we could do as well every month, now that weāve eaten down the pantry somewhat, but Iām glad weāre able to save money when we really need it.
The pantry is much emptier and better organized, thanks mainly to D going through it, throwing stuff out, and using things that he discovered (mainly dried legumes, yum).
We overspent on household items and I failed to cover it until the end of the month, so just a small fail there.
No eating out - success! And honestly this reset was so, so refreshing. Will aim to keep this as much as possible in November, outside of when weāre traveling to visit family.
Eat up the freezer and pantry - not much success this week, but did make a little progress over the course of the month.
Aiming for $1000 grocery spend - overshot it, not gonna say how much . But hey, Iāve got plenty on hand for November nowā¦
Goal 1: cheap and prepaid thrills. This week I did take advantage of a free library storytime, and my exercise class, and the playplace where we had a prepaid thingy. Guess I did OK.
Goal 2: plan ahead. I spent over $25 on eating out which is almost what I was hoping to spend the entire month. Spent $157.45 on groceries. Oh and $29.50 at the farmers market. This brings my grocery total to $720.55. This is about $200 more than I was hoping to spend. The farmers market always gets me.
Goal 3: Pay a bill. My husband got paid and I shook him down immediately for the money so itās paid. Thank goodness. It didnāt technically come out of my āpot,ā but I donāt care.
Goal 4: Spend under $4000 in the month: my total spending was $3779 for the month. So I did it! I spent under $4000 and this even includes a few indulgences. But this doesnāt include the medical bill payment, so if I had counted that, we would have been way over.
Learnings:
It appears that we are not the type of family who can go to the grocery store only once a week. If we wanted to do that, we would have to buy more at each visit to last through the week. I am fine with the frequency being higher, because I struggle to plan for a whole week at a time, and impulse purchases arenāt too much of a problem for me.
The farmersā market always throws me for a loop financially. I usually spend tens of dollars there each week and Iām happy to support our local farmers. But I forget to factor it in as normal grocery spending.
Halloween. If your kid decides on a costume early in the month, WAIT to buy stuff for it until they change their mind. I lived it, I DIYād two costumes this month.
It is possible for me to spend under $4000/month in a ānormalā month (no lumpy expenses). I will transfer the balance into savings so we can use it for a lumpy expense like car insurance, etc.
The health insurance system sucks, especially at urgent care facilities. Do not recommend.
Because of the circumstances (mourning of sportsball plus gig deliverables due Monday) I am not going to get the shadowy one to pull detailed spending numbers until Tuesday, so I wonāt have a final sense of anything until then.
We did two ferry trips out this time, rather than our usual one, and both of those had a hotel night associated with them, along with nice restaurant dinners. But today we just got takeaway sandwiches, some chips and a pop to carry us over the whole day (plus hotel breakfast included in stay), so perfectly reasonable start to November.
And we pretty perfectly set our transit spend in NZ, and had just enough for the transit to hotel in BC left over from last time. Which isnāt actually budgeting but it feels like it.
I met all of my goals except for clothing spending, because I had to buy a dress for an event. But, there was no impulse clothes shopping, so Iām happy with it!
I ended up with grocery budget at $314/$450 which is amazing!! And I still have SO much meat in the freezer, and Iām going to try for another $400 month in November.
Iām still feeling really good about no plants and no book spending, and keeping those goals going in November as well.
It didnāt really end up being a low spend month because of vet expenses, but I was so much more conscious of my spending because of the weekly check ins, and having the impulse/discretionary spending basically gone, I was still able to stay within a workable budget even with like $500 of āextraā expenses this month.
Final check inā
Food, $299/$300 (up from $250)āOne last stop at the grocery store (needed cheese), but otherwise this seems like a reasonable level to try to stay at for the next couple months, especially given travel plans and the fact that I still have a (mostly) stocked freezer
Sports/Health/Hobbies, $400/$400āLast streaming came in and was reimbursed, but counting it anyway. Although as of yesterday (Nov. 1) I have another medical bill from earlier this year that came in that I need to cross-check, because I swear I paid all thoseā¦
Trip refund/reimbursement, 86%/80%āGiving them one more week to issue the last refund, or Iāll add that to the insurance forms and see where it goes.
Gifts, $0/no specific budgetāOne friend taken care of (came across an old book in a genre he collects in a used bookstore), and sibling has sent along a couple ideas. Hoping to get sibling/siblingās family done by Thanksgiving so I can use my āfree checked backā to drop off their stuff when I visit and skip the shipping mess, but weāll see how that goes.
massively overspent in hobby spending. lesson: I need to look at my calendar when making budget challenges and then budget accordingly, not just pick a random number from the air.
didnāt buy any house stuff! woo!
kept up to date with Monarch
Thanks again for hosting this @anomalily. Always such a good exercise!
I fought the double-billing people and won with reciepts, confirmation numbers, and transaction ID numbers. Also with being polite to the representative. Iāve not yet paid the new balance, though I think I got the bill yesterday, so maybe I will today. Iām calling it done.
Also got a mystery check for a refund of a medical payment from a different medical group, $83.
Final checkin and Iām calling Budgettober a success. Iāve figured out American medical billing as much as I possibly can. Also sticking with HDHP next year as thereās still no way we can come out worse with it than the other, more expensive plans. Am considering adding a hospital indemnity pollicy, which I previously would have thought a waste. Checking in with HR - it looks to me like it does not exclude pre-existing conditions. That would be unusual, but it could be.
For eating out, I slid in at $49/$50, just under my budget. This means, with the exception of W3 where I had to recast my budget, I met my goal every week. As a bonus, grocery shopping was lower as well which meant that my overall spending on food has been substantially lower compared to other months this year.
In an ongoing theme re: food, I also met my āspending for a causeā goal and donated $50 to the Portland State University food pantry, which is doing a lot to brace for the delay in SNAP benefits happening this month. I really actually like this budget category, and I plan to keep it. This month I will probably continue to look for opportunities to support food pantries and other basic needs resources!
Lastly, I have settled on my next savings goal, unfortunately because the universe has decided it for me. I keep having car problems that are getting more and more expensive, and itās starting to become apparent to me that it might be cheaper at this point to buy a new (used) car than continue to systematically repair every part of my current car. Overall Iād like to drive less (this will become easier once Iām done for grad school) but I know with my current lifestyle a car is a necessity. If anyone has car-purchasing advice, Iād welcome it.
So proud of myself for staying on track with my goals for October, even if it felt hard.
we pulled numbers today. With two months to go of the year, compared to our planned budget we are at:
143% on personal/medical/dental (new drug prescriptions, 2 chipped teeth, 2 sets of progressive glasses)
113% on misc house things (recovery costs for a corrupted external hard drive taking us over)
104% on books/crafts/gifts
93% on food
all together, we are at 99% of planned life spending, excluding travel and the reno, with two months remaining. The food is mostly because we didnāt have a functional kitchen for 2.5 months so there was a lot of eating out and convenience foods, which could have gone into the ancillary reno spend or even travel (for Montreal foods).
Next year weāll need to budget more for the medical category, but hopefully wonāt have as many of those types of events as this year.
I probably will be buying a new computer shortly due to planned obsolescence, that may hit this year or next. Is what it is.
Next year we also want to put furniture in the budget, a new mattress, new chairs for the library, a new kitchen table. And a new back deck.
Originally we werenāt going to budget for travel for next year, but it may be that we are going to NZ again. If we donāt, we may switch to annual visits starting in 2027. TBD.
The total did not change! Halloween treats were homemade (we had no trick-or-treaters, booo.) All expenses hit $1129, so I have a $20 to add to my donation pile this month. It felt good to start supervising closely again, & I have started a new spreadsheet format that I suspect will be long-term effective without added costs or privacy worries of an aggregation service.
Sleep Budget: Off the rails. I only met it 3 days this week. This makes this week awful, but overall for the month of October 77% (81% if you include the one day of missing data). So close and yet so far.
Meals Budget: Missed 2 meals this week. Absolutely did not meet targets every day except one this week. No wonder I feel like trash. This means 89% for the week based on meals and 91% for the month, so technically a success, but boy do I need to focus on actually balancing things.
Craft Supply Budget: never did actually spend any money in October, even on planned purchases. I think this was fueled by the fact that I had to have expensive electrical work done this month, and I need to get my car fixed next month, so I have been feeling guilty about spending at all. Success, I suppose. I did just spend the equivalent of the biggest planned purchase on different craft things yesterday (Nov 2), so some of it got delayed just a little bit.
Overall, a success. It really makes me think my sleep and meal intake are connected and if I can improve them some more I might feel better more of the time.
Thought Iād update everyone. Even though the challenge is technically over and I met all my goals, I did mention topping up a GIC thatās due the end of the month. I sold some old gold jewelry from my parents and grandparents, that Iāll never use, and have enough now! I needed about $300 to meet the goal. I was given over $800 for the gold. So I put it all in the bank and took Hubby out for a nice supper.
$126 final
$296
$352
$187
. But hey, Iāve got plenty on hand for November nowā¦
