we may need to design a special budgetober badge for checking in on the same day you give birth
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Week 2 check-in:
grocery: 14.93 (total: 36.91)
pet - dog food: 53.50 (large bag kibble) (total: 66.40)
pet - dog medical: 52.55 (diabetes supplies)
utilities: 59.99 (internet)
entertainment: 19.98 (netflix, subscription)
health: ??? (urgent care and imaging)
I donāt know how much $ my medical scare is going to cost me (probably a lot) but I might not include it in my total. It had to happen (not like I wasnāt going to go check it out (she says while also not previously checking out a probable kidney stone)) but also, I havenāt used urgent care in probably 15 years, so I guess I was due.
No propane yet, still above 50 on the dial. Home heating oil/natural gas/propane prices are going bonkers though, probably should have topped it off Oct 1 again, oops. 
So far my wood stove is doing all the heavy lifting. I bought 1 cord of wood back in September, so am not counting it here.
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Sheās so casual about it. "Checking in, oh by the way, had a baby. 
And on time and not a day late, like me. Again.
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I forgot the donation/charity category. I went to a different church today and donated $5 to the local medical facility and $5 to the church.
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^^^
Lily forgot to put an exception in for if delivering a baby, you can be a little late to check in and still get a sticker
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week 2!
my food this week:
- Oct 10: Freshānālean: 157.35
- Oct 10: Milstead 16.79 (latte plus partnerās latte)
- Oct 11: Pi pizzeria 109.10 (55 paid back over cashapp)
- Oct 12: Milstead, 8.44
- Oct 13: Mcdonalds (door dash/huge mistake): 39.16
- Oct 14: Vita ā 38.62 (cold brew box + latte)
- Oct 14: Markettime (breakfast): 10.46
- total: 324.92
I spend a lot on each week on food, Iām on full-time disability but after a year and a half with no income, I finally started getting my long-term disability paid from my insurance from my former corporate job and I get 5500$ a month right now. Getting my meals prepared from a company (Freshānālean right now, who I just canceled with so I could try out other places) has been a life-saver but it hasnāt stopped me from impulse-buying when Iāve been stressed out (note the mcdonaldās purchase the same day I had a medical scare this week).
Speaking of getting disability, any idea what the taxes are like on getting disability from a company like metlife? I havenāt figured out yet how much I need to save for tax time, so Iām just saving most of my initial settlement from earlier in the ear (about 40k). Thatās definitely overkill, I just donāt know what else to do with it right now. Really, if I need any advice, itās what to do with a large chunk of change like that. I donāt have any credit card debt and not much student loans left, so itās just sitting there staring me in the face. After not getting paid for so long and eating into my 401k to pay rent, Iām terrified of not having money around in case something else happens, so Iāve mostly been leaving it alone.
I think thatās my update for this week? Itās been really nice to have a venue to share whatās going on, I really really have needed to ask for advice but money is so hard to talk about, so knowing there a judgment-free place to talk about junk is really freeing, so thanks yāall 
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Check your policy, but generally your disability income is tax free, if you were the one who paid into the premiums. More info here:
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Budgetober stream (with pumpkins!) in 1 hour.
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Week 2 check-in:
Total spending to date: 2540
Total Vacation Spending: 413
Contemplating: buying a rad power bike for $499 for my dad during their pre black Friday sale.
Also music festivals especially outdoors are amazing. I absolutely recommend them.
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Week two check in. Still on track with my restaurant spending, though that is partly due to a nice dinner out last night with a gift card my parents sent me and my partner for our birthdays. But gifts are meant to be enjoyed, and only spending the tip meant it was a great deal on a delicious meal!
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Just noting a couple of cash purchases here or else I will forget later, as I donāt normally use cash for stuff:
These fall into the Things category:
Fancy handmade birthday card for a friend: $6.02
Gorgeous handmade hair thingie that I absolutely did not need but it is gorgeous: $15.
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i would like to request an extension bc of midterms T_T
Iāve started bringing lunch to school! Which might be ramping up my grocery bill, but itās much better to spend $6 on a Giant Dorito Bag and bring it to school than $2.29 every day on a Little Dorito Bag. Iāve also branched out to TRAIL MIX to take to school, which is very exciting.
Spent this week: $9.29, which is very good!
On Little Treats, I thought I was doing very well: $46.31 on Bath Bombs, and then I spent another $15 on a local festival and $8 on an ice cream float at said festival (which was a bad idea, it was very chilly). But! Iāve decided that I will mark the bath bombs down as a Health Expense because Baths are Encouraged for Fibromyalgia. I also spent $15 on Fancy Handmade Soap which I am going to put in drawers to make my clothes smell good, which brings my total expenses to $38. Which, well, I did do some finagling, But. I feel okay about this.
Tuition payments are: a nightmare because school stopped taking my bank account payments. So Iāve spent $845.55, which is technically less than what I should have spent (total payment was $1500) but Iāve had to pay a bunch of money in fees. I am umm. Not sure what I am going to do about this because I am in the middle of midterms but ideally at some point I will deal with this.
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Weekly check-in:
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I have set up Plum, got it going, and am enjoying using it.
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I have gone back to checking my accounts daily, sometimes multiple times a day, and am trying to feel a thrill of excitement over not spending / saving.
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I have gone back to habit tracking the days I donāt spend, the days I manage to save, and the days I go outside the house.
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As a result of which, I have mostly stopped the secretive hidden spending.
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Instead of spending a lot of time on researching and buying new purchases for my current hyper-focus, I am actually fixing up and using the things I already have. The temptation is absolutely still there, but the spending I was doing was totally unsustainable. This is a big deal.
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I still have not done my spreadsheet. Pretty sure I am avoiding it. So that will be my main thing to try and do this week, now the spending wagon is slowed down.
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Lastly, after todayās livestream, I have set up two more savings pots on the account which was my āsecret spendingā account. One pot is for Tech Fails, and the second is for House Contingencies. I possibly have too many pots now, but I can always change that, so letās see how it goesā¦
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Basically, am doing my level best to make saving seem exciting. I start ADHD meds soon, so possibly wonāt need those little Dopamine hits quite so much in future, which will hopefully help. Weāll see.
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week 2 check in!
I resisted my desire to buy lots of kuromi things while the yen is so low! >:D Have employed the āfill a cart and ditch the siteā method to avoid buying lots of stickers and cute things on Etsy or individual artistsā pages (I usually justify these purchases by telling myself itās supporting a small business, which it is, and thatās dope but not at the expense of my financial health lmao). Iām keeping a wish list in the back of my hobonichi with the date I wanted A Thing, the price, and the feeling I was having at the time, which is hard for me to identify sometimes (idk I struggle with IDāing negative emotions in general, which is something Iām working on!). I think these strategies have been helpful!
This week, I ended up spending $6 shipping something I preordered a few months ago, but thatās it (which is kind of a shock for me haha)! Of course, this is only because Iām really lucky and staying with my parents for a while as I study for a HUGE LIFE-CHANGING EXAM (no biggie lol). Surprisingly, I did not spend on nail polish. I usually end up buying at least a bottle or two per month because there are indie makers that will make limited edition polishes and I have such a hard time resisting! I really tried not to buy even though the Halloween polishes look so rad. Working hard to appreciate my collection as it is (thx to Our Lady of Spending Wisely, Hannah Louise Poston).
The only other thing I might cave and spend on this weekend is a kickstarter for an otome game that looks DOPE. I am trying to dissuade myself since 1.) I just bought a few otome games and 2.) my backlog is huge and I have No Time but itās so cool!!! And I love supporting female indie game devs! Will report in next week when I inevitably pledge haha!
@noodle truly extremely metal that you posted here right after you gave birth! Congrats to you and your little nugget!!! I am supporting the idea that you should get a special badge haha!
Also, for friends in the US, the beta app for federal student loan forgiveness is out! fill it out!!! it takes 2 mins!!!
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Week 2 check in! Iām keeping up with writing everything down which is good progress for me. Shuffled some things around in various budget things because Iāve noticed some things that should get tracked a little differently for various reasons. Also really noticing the food price hike. Ouch. Going to be looking into some other options for certain things I generally eat. This month Iām pretty strapped for income (yay freelance) but itās not terrible. Iām still running off the high of paying off one of my sources of debt so Iām still feeling good about it all, even if a lot of things are really in my face in terms of grocery costs. XāD
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week 2 check in:
the treats got to me this week, mostly because I ran out of milk, then coffee, and ended up getting 4 coffees out this week. not the end of the world and it was cheap coffee most of the time, so it could have been worse.
made some kind of impulse/kind of planned purchases this week. I was waiting for some supplies for natural dyeing to go on sale and they did, so I picked them up. I donāt think it will derail my savings plan for the month.
tracking is helping, so I just need to figure out the best way to not burn out on it, like I did last year.
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Added up my familyās expenses so far, $802.46. Higher than i was expecting, but Iāve got them tracked in categories and will update Final total to include the categories. At this stage just seeing what the total comes toā¦
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Iām going to play along for the second half of October. My goal for this week is:
Gasoline $0 of $60
Groceries $33 of $100
Allowance $0 of $50
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Fell victim to an internet scam. Out $200CAD. But got to the bank before said scam was completed. Bank is investigating. I may get some money back. They assured me, because I came in before the fraudulent cheque bounced, there would be no further charges to me as a result of the fraud. I was told to block this individual on all platforms. Done.
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Dammmn I am so sorry. Hopefully you get it all back.
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