I forgot it was October today and already spent $8 on fancy coffee for a friend who was having a bad day and am about to go spend more $ on a coffee shop morning for me because I need some down time that doesnāt involve being on my computer.
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I was drawn in by the stickers (@anomalily the email marketing works!)
Iād like to track my non-essential, non-food, non-house-related spending this month to better understand where Iām spending money to seek comfort.
- the house spending is its own thing
- Iām already intimately familiar with how my spending habits are with food & eating out
I donāt actually know how much I spend here so Iāll set what sounds like a generous budget of $500 and see where that takes us 
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So I talked to my husband and figured out what we need to track. An extremely expensive category, filled with mysteries, and horrifically embarrassing. I think that probably checks all the boxes of āah I should pay attention to thisā. Avoidance- the classic symptom I should probably deal with something!
That category is the āgeneral householdā. It became a catchall after we had a baby and I didnāt want to track down to very minute categories like supplements, and workout gear, and stuff like that. So this is a catchall that has things like any toys, any furnishings for the house, any random things like photo books for our daughter, supplements or medicationās, camping gear, books,? Iām honestly not sure I even want to be honest yet how big this category is. But letās say that the average over the last six months equals one. I want to be at 0.75 as my goal.
Okay Iām being yelled at by a toddler, more later.
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so this is just my opinion as a total YNAB fanatic, but you might find it helpful to make that a LIIIITTLE more granular & thus trackable! youāve talked about the following things: supplements, workout gear, toys, home improvement, photo books, baby gear too I think, camping gear, books. How about like, two or three discrete categories from these? Like:
kiddo: toys, baby gear, photo books
health: supplements, workout gear, camping gear
& leave the rest where it is in āgeneral householdā?
however you do it I wish you luck! looking at something with clear eyes, whether itās one category or a hundred, is the first step so GOOD JOB being honest with yourself about that! and I am soooo the same way, oh boy Iām avoiding thisā¦ probably time to look at it 
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Yeah thatās part of the goal this month, to figure out what exactly is in there. But it has definitely been a symptom of a bunch of life triage last couple years. Iāve diligently tracked our spending for the better part of a decade now, and itās not like itās a make or break it category for our income and outgo balancing, but I do hate the feeling of not knowing how things all add up to a whole. Part of the challenge is straight up time and energy constraint. My husband buys and is reimbursed for a bunch of stuff for work, and I use Mint to aggregate everything, and itās really bad about re-categorizing stuff that Iāve already categorized. Iāve tried different tracking systems in the past though (including YNAB lol) and I just donāt have the energy to successfully make the switch. Anyway, Iām kind of curious to see if thereās a substantial amount of it that is secretly my husbandās work expenses. Or if itās like 75% kid or what.
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Iām in!!
This month Iām focusing on lowering grocery and misc spending, month 2 of my goal of saving an extra 1k a month.
Will post budget later today!
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Ugh I already spent $260 on groceries and household stuff. I budgeted $340 for this paycheck with one more week to go.
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1st of the month! Budgetober! I am in!!
I need to rein in spending on so many levels, to try and trick my brain into thinking that saving is just as interestingā¦ no, more interesting, than a series of quick hits.
Been told that telling myself something is difficult then makes it more difficult. Which makes sense. But I emotionally spend, and plenty of emotions are sloshing around all over the place at the moment, soā¦ Yeah.
So. Letās re-wire this. Sāgonna be a blastā¦
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Week 0 update:
- Handled all the low-hanging fruit on the spreadsheet - updated savings/investment account numbers (which, yikes, hadnāt checked the Vanguard in a bit). Last time it was fully updated was March, so thereās 6 months of expenses to go through.
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You might try and see if simplifi works for you and your bankā¦it has fun badges and stuff and I find myself very motivated by it 
I know you like games so it might work for you
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Oh perfect! Iāll give it a go. Thanksā¦ 
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Ah. Seems itās US only. Oh well. Will look for something similar. Gamification is a good idea for me for sureā¦
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Ah, I wondered if it might be US only. Have you tried Plum? I would love to hear your experience with it
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Just about to look into Plum. Iāve not really tried anything yet. One of my banks does savings pots (but also refuses to work with external apps). I do find that useful though. On another account I have a āsave the changeā feature from transactions. Thatās about the liimit of my experience with such things. Seems like we do have some options, but I guess just such a small market compared to the US. Thanks tho. Will move Plum to the top of the list.
Edit to add: Thinking about it, I suppose the fact that I use three different bank accounts for different aspects of my life, is a simplified version of one of these apps. Hmmmā¦
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Okay, Plum installed, and linked to the two of my three accounts which it can link to. So itās doing its big brain stuff in the background. Letās see how this goes. Thanks again for all the advicesā¦
And Happy Budgetober all!! 
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Hmmm. This seems like a good time to revisit my overall budget now that I have a better idea of what the ālumpyā expenses are - last monthās tires were more expensive than I expected, so I feel like I need to recalibrate for a lot of things in that category.
I also need to make some decisions about Christmas.
I will use my favorite tool to track all this - a tablet of accounting paper. I will also sharpen a new pencil!
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day 1 - I have figured out based on my day rate (which is how Iām billing my primary client) how much I will keep in chequing for cash flow, and how much I will put aside for taxes (rounding up based on my anticipated annual incoming, what I anticipate my portion of CPP will be, and the HST etc.)
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Week 0 & Goal Setting for the Month:
$2000 for college (This is about $300 more than I owe This Month but I think that wiggle room might come in handy/might prepay a little for Novemberās due date)
$50 for Little Treats
$226 for Campus Food
very into simplifi as well!!!
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| Rent | 1700 |
|---|---|
| Car payment | 320 |
| Car Insurance | 350 |
| Apt Insurance | 23 |
| Internet | 46 |
| Streaming | 71 |
| Electricity | ~140 |
| car Gas | 90 |
| COBRA for dad | 700 |
| Groceries | 350 (goal is 250-275) |
| Therapy | 150 |
| Google Fin Phone | 75 |
| Misc Spending | 200 (goal is 100-150) |
| Savings Goal | 1000 |
Thereās my budget for the month. Iāve cut out the butcher box order thanks to a ton of food in the freezer courtesy of @Meowkins cleaning out her freezer. Instead of 350 on groceries and 200 on misc spending I want to bring it down to 250-275 on groceries and 150 on Misc stuff this month. This will require creativity, no alcohol, no eating out. I am so game for this challenge! My reward is a training in Orlando at the end of the month where I will stay an extra day and celebrate Halloween with friends!
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Ok Iām definitely doing this.
We have meal planned dinners for the whole month and done our first grocery shop. It was a lot. Iāll tally it up later, once I do that I hope to be able to set some kind of grocery/food target spend. I havenāt tracked grocery spending since we were able to come in under $1000/month total and that is definitely not going to work anymore 
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