Budgeting victory: I had to get some last minute work on my bike. The total came out to $95.97 (oof). I had $97.29 in my bike sinking fund.
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HOLY SHIT I havenāt fedexed anything in years. $42 for āsaverā shipping? Of course, I did it at the place where my private mailbox is at since I had to go there anyway. So there was probably a markup. Oh well. It is a small local business owned by friends of a friend.
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USPS priority FTW.
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Update:
Decreasing my discretionary spending is happening but not as much as I planned. This week I only spent 2 hours worth of work on fun stuff, but I had planned on one.
Also had a pretty big ADHD tax as I fumbled around being indecisive about which prenatals to buy and boughtā¦ 3 kinds. At least they wonāt go bad anytime soon and I can use em? But thatās $60 I didnāt need to spend on top of the approx. $150 infertility tax I paid on upgrading my supplement regimen to what my doc had recommended ages ago.
I donāt know what my plan is next weekā¦ Try again to only go out to eat once I guess? I guess in order to make that actually a plan Iāll need to make a meal plan because we donāt go out because we canāt cook or are dead tired or want to, itās just that we donāt have a plan and so itās an easier default than deciding AND getting ingredients AND cooking AND cleaning.
Iām not doing well but at least Iām keeping track.
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The USPS here is really really bad both incoming and outgoing, several things I mailed just went poof. And I didnāt want a death certificate to go poof.
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Okay, so I paid my $1500+ VISA bill and am sitting here contemplating how to handle this. Over $1150 was for my businessā¦mostly my website. I am hoping this big gamble pays off. Still I only have $295 regular income in my account. Everything else over and above that is income from my very small business.
This is a very good exercise for me. It had me look at all the regular income and expenses on my one personal account. While I get a regular $295/mth income, $150.62 is committed to regular monthly expenses. I could cut that in half by not contributing to my TFSA, but I hate to do that. Weāll see. Like I said, Christmas will be tight this year. Iāll have $144.38 for everything. Shipping can come out of the household miscellaneous budget category.
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Invoice for first month of work went out, so Iāll be paid the first half of Nov. It will not be enough to cover our Nov spend, so weāll need to pull down more from EQ to cash flow. I have definitely been too cavalier in my response to people discussing inconsistent cash flow before. I apologize to everyone negatively impacted by my lack of empathy.
December should be a larger amount (covering October work), and let me refill some of the money Iāve pulled down from EQ.
Food/grocery is trending high, as anticipated. And itās higher than that even, because I wasnāt feeling well so we got takeout pizza. It was very yummy. And today we got fancy bread (on a gift card so it counts/doesnāt count) to eat with soup.
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- Sitting down to do some more budget catch-up this afternoon!
- Food: $75.19, including about $50 on our annual Spice House order of Totally Necessary fancy spices.
Happy hour: $38.40 - We had our annual review with our Edward Jones advisor. I know other forums may consider that a face punch-worthy amount of fees, but we have appreciated having an outside eye on our financial picture. We have a few things to research from that meeting.
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Update number 2!
Having the flock and fiber fest taking up the bulk of my budget I have been really great at not impulsively buying stuff. I wonder how next month will go when I donāt have a Thing to save forā¦
$14.00 SCRAP - donation for fiber club, cone of fluorescent pink acrylic yarn, a few sets of DPNs
$47.00 Nitty Gritty Fiber - locally dyed and sourced alpaca roving, wool, and patterns
$37.00 Lotus Energy - the energy drink I get from my local coffee drive thru, buying it myself and mixing with fizzy water at home will āpay for itselfā in about 2 weeks
$260.62 remaining woo
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Food basics 202
Afghani store 30
I would like and deserve delivery treats
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Budgetober stream this week. LIVE Sunday, October 16th at 11:30 AM PDT, 2:30PM EDT and at 7:30 PM BST - Monday 2:30AM AWST, 5:30AM AEDT.
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Alsoā¦I get a badge, too! hereās the checkin for this weekās grocery tracking.
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Week 2!
Iām doing great on gas. Havenāt had to fill up again so Iām still at $62/200 (hopefully, but 250 if I need to). I might have to drive into work an extra day next week though for programming, so itāll be higher I think.
Still over on both eating out categories. $59/100 eating out alone and $134/200 for eating out with folks because I wanted to treat another friend. Iām on a serotonin upswing though (I think) and we did a massive grocery haul so Iām hoping I can avoid the eating out for the next week.
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Week 1 spend: $410.18
Week 2 spend: $207.83
Total spend: $618.01
We really pulled back this week. I kind of cheated, substituting one meal for take out (because I didnāt have the energy to go and buy fresh fish and also cook it) but I think it evens out as we have been eating home cooked meals for lunch a lot more due to the improved meal planning.
We did a lot of next check-ins groceries today and have already spent more than this week.
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2nd update:
Stationery: 0/40
Snacks: 31/30 ā 31/50
Gifts: 14/50
Still no stationery spending - the con is tomorrow! I also have so much stuff in my online carts but will wait after I math tomorrow night and update this. Iāve gone over my estimate for the snack category on beach chips and so many iced teas and lattes since itās been too hot to think straight. Maybe will adjust my food estimate to 50 since weāre only halfway. Donated to the OTW and will consider that a gift, idk to the general fannish community or to myself lol
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Week two check in:
$158.63/322
$20ish - desperation run for nasal sprays for my cold
$9.70 - target items. A toddler size snow shovel (I was very excited- we missed these last year and otherwise she has her own rake, shovel, etc. She loves real tools) and some colorful bandaids.
$9.75 - pack of NASA stickers that SirB and I can add to tyvec so we can have matching astronaut costumes with Latte. (Bonus, he should still be able to use the tyvec for work so that part doesnāt cost us anything, and we wear the same size tyvec)
$7.58 - button batteries to replace the batteries in our key fobs. Got the more expensive ones with anti toddler tasting coating for safety concerns.
$12.90 - toddler size reflective vest. Itās getting dark earlier and earlier and weāve been doing evening walks. Toddler darting is obviously always a risk. Tried to figure out something at home, but went with this because it clips on well and shouldnāt fall off as she runs.
$7 ish- Iāll check this receipt soon. Kleenex, hopefully for future colds. (So hoping weāre almost all over this one) The nice lotiony stuff.
$18ish - Iāll check the receipt and revise this number. giant pack of Costco Kleenex. Sale price beats the price anywhere. Normal stuff though not the āpamper me Iām sickā lol.
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Week 2 Check-In:
| Non-groceries/restaurants, non-house, non-essential spendings: | |
|---|---|
| Zebra Z-Grip pens | $6 |
| charity | $110 |
| vegan marshmallows & other sāmores fixinās for a firepit night | $9 |
| latte with a friend | $6 |
| clothes I kept from StitchFix | $71 |
| tip on a massage | $15 |
| Week 2 Total | $217 |
| ā | ā |
| Budgetober TOTAL | $420/$500 |
Err. I may need some 
soon. Except maybe Iām ok because my recurring donations & clothes subscription are done, and Iām at a work trip next week so my expenses are reimbursable.
ā¦and now I really do have enough pens
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Updating before I go try and fix my bikeā¦
As expected I used up most of my restaurant budget visiting with friends last weekend, but the food was good and the company was excellent so Iām okay with that. Especially since I managed to avoid the grocery store and was able to use things in the pantry for the rest of my meals/food swap. Did use a cc deal at Walgreens for $14 of cleaning supplies (should have been $15, but I miscalculated)ā¦right now itās in āotherā and Iāll probably leave it there after the reimbursement comes in since technically it was still what I group as grocery spending.
Have a women-in-tech type meetup this week that Iāll probably end up buying a pitcher for, but theoretically thatāll be the last of my restaurant spending for the month, and planning another set of meals with canned/frozen vegetables to continue to get rid of stuff I donāt want this week also. I hate most canned vegetables but picked up some at the start of the pandemic as emergency supplies, and at this point they all need to get used up. If they werenāt at their expiry dates Iād donate them, but so it goes.
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Nope never possible
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I mean, thatās how I really feel. but you knew that.
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