Budgetober Challenge 2025 🎃: Let's get spooky and frugal

[BiblioFeroz]

Do you have a DVD player or a game console that plays DVDs? Your library probably has a fine selection of Peppa Pig DVDs.

We watch Peppa on Paramount+ but I don’t know if it’s cheaper than Netflix.

[a_hardie]

We don’t (functionally) have a TV. I do have a DVD player but don’t think it can connect to my laptop. I’m definitely eyeing some kind of portable DVD player setup for a future month when I’m not trying to cut my budget to the absolute minimum!

I desperately want to avoid her watching it on YouTube just because… well, I just looked it up on YT and was immediately overstimulated

[chaskavitch]

@a_hardie

One thing I did this week was visit a local food pantry. I grabbed a couple items that we always buy. Complicated feelings about that but ya know.

Also, often food pantries are also set up for waste-reduction! It’s things that might otherwise be thrown out (“old” Starbucks frozen food or baked goods, for example), so you’re just helping with that. The one in my town calls itself a “food rescue” and even accepts excess garden produce from individuals as well as farms.

My mom used to volunteer at a Care and Share pantry, and the volunteers take things all the time. There’s often a HUGE influx of one type of thing at a time, and they can’t give it all away fast enough.

ETA - There’s an article about our food rescue in the weekly newsletter from my electric company, of all places! Appropriate timing

[cube]

So far so good. This week’s spending in my household:
$2100 on rent, $30 on a doctor’s copay, $62 on groceries, $45 for the metro (this goes onto a card and gets spent bit by bit). All pretty unavoidable.
$0 on fun money this week. I have been going to the gym, which is already paid for, and the library, which is obviously free! And they’re both within walking distance of my home, so no transit expenses either.

[PinkTutu]

Flubbing things out of the gate. Needed some display and packaging for the sale Tuesday. I’m not sure what category that goes under. I may need another category for sale expenses.

Spent ~$50 CAD on smaller table top plastic bins, plastic bags for materials, markers to draw more patterns, and labels to use for price tags.

Up side? A lady came over for instruction today and bought a pattern for $60, some old used magazines $2/8, and ordered a bag of yarn for $10.

[PinkTutu]

Good morning! This is a continuation of my 2025 Financial Goals.

2025 Debt Goals:

• Limit credit card use. - Ended up with 2 cards: one personal and one business.
• Analyze 2024 cc use/expenses… - done!
• Find a better credit card with gift cards/cash back. Free. - done!
• No carrying debt…period. - done!

[LadyDuck]

Check in: I did the budget, now to follow the budget!

Also did my business budget and determined I should be cashflow neutral/ positive to January next year, but also trying a couple of small things to earn a little more cash is worthwhile.

[Cereal]

Is today the first check in? Or next Saturday?

I consider myself at $0/$100 spent so far. Eating existing stockpiles. I did have an instance where I was unsure if food I bought counted for this (they were sweets but I bought some for me and for my mother, but we were eating them separately and she gave me one back? I decided to let it go as meal/family food but it could have gone either way).

[anomalily]

Today is just a goals check in! Badges start next week! Always free to do an extra check in tho

[a_hardie]

Done so far:

* cancel expensive password manager (it’s a yearly payment so I don’t think it will affect this month, but still, favor to future me)

• consider cancelling Netflix and find other ways to fuel my child’s Peppa Pig habit
• cancel random Patreon thing I am supporting for $3/month (not anything related to OMD, I promise)
• move random $14 of Venmo money into my bank account

^It was actually $22! hey big money

[maggie_in_da_woods]

Check in 1

Gas: $28/$200 (prices went down a few cents!)
Groceries: $110/$300
Eat out: $20/$300
Fun money/gifts: $0/$167

We did a Costco/barbeque shop today so groceries is already pretty high. The rest of the month should just be normal food shopping. Otherwise it’s going great 4 days in

[maggie_in_da_woods]

Other note, which forum channel would be a good one to ask about computer backup options? I currently use a Backblaze subscription and I’d like to stop paying that each month, but I’m not sure what to switch to.

[anomalily]

Random questions?

[jacqui_z]

Extra Check-In: The cash-only system is working well so far. I did make two thoughtful exceptions to the rule, which I won’t count as breaking it.

1. My only source of water at work is a finicky vending machine. I paid for a water bottle with my card and will continue buying water this way for the rest of the month. I log the money spent along with all of my other takeout/snacking spending.

2. Breakfast burritos were BOGO yesterday, but only for to-go orders placed online. I went for it and I don’t regret it! It was a low spoons day, and I was planning on getting a pre-made dinner anyway.

Takeout Spending So Far: $51.55

[diapasoun]

Please tag me wherever you post this, my spouse uses that and I would love for us to pay less

[diapasoun]

Big Trader Joe’s stock up today, $307.10.

Plus $20 on fancy coffee from the local roaster.

I need to get some split peas and ham for soup, also, but then won’t need to buy groceries for a hot second.

[plainjane]

just got the final numbers from Sept, and we were 66% over our standing food budget, which takes us to 85% of budget when we’re only 75% through the year. This isn’t fully surprising, as we didn’t have much of a kitchen, and we were going out for lunch or coffee many days because we couldn’t really stay in the house. Plus I was refilling a pantry and fridge/freezer. And I was struggling with not having any nonstick pans available.

However, I’m going to commit to no additional purchases before our travel except

• chocolate chips for banana muffins (go-to calories while in transit)
• tomato for the shadowy one’s lunch
• ETA: girl guide cookies from my niece

(We are also at 135% of our health budget, and there are still 3 months, but that is what happens when you need to fix two chipped teeth, and replace two pairs of high prescription glasses with eye dr visits, and add several new meds to the ongoing list. nothing much to do here. I will not economize here)

[mountainmustache29]

First check in!

So far just mortgage and HOA dues paid/spent in October. I’ve spent nothing else except $20 for a subscription that I forgot to cancel after the free trial ended

Will probably need groceries sometime in the next few days, but nothing major! My goal is to have a no spend weekend, which should be easy to accomplish because I’m having a low-key stay at home weekend.

[jellaba]

Check in #one
Eating out, excluding Oct.1-3, Budget 200€

[Candygirl]

Current budget plan numbers are on track (5 days in), except for entertainment category. Impulse concert ate up most of the funds I had predicted, and possibly buying tickets for 2026 shows this week were not calculated in.

Anyways, this is why I was building a new budget plan for this month for new “normal”.

I did look at what came out of my account in September and I was close to expectations, so that is good.

I will definitely need to continue to contribute to a travel fund or have that set aside too.

Here is to the next week!