Week 3 Check-In:
This Weekās Spend: $641.96
Total Spent So Far: $2,423.12
I have about $570 left in my monthly budget, which should be doable for the last week of the month.
Happy to report that I made a few hundred more dollars than expected in October! I may wave my wand partway through next week so I can treat myself with some of that money. Weāll see.
13-Oct to 19-Oct: $375 of $500
The ship pulled into . I ate out twice, went to two coffee shops (Starbucks and Dunkinā aināt I fucking fancy), bought a souvenir magnet, got a haircut, and replaced my protein shaker bottle that got packed and I wonāt see again until 2026.
Now weāre back at sea, poorer and with ragrats.
Check-in week 3!
I would like to use my magic wand and re-cast my grocery category 
! I forgot that this month is a 5 grocery trip month and not a 4 grocery trip month, Which means I canāt spend less than last month, which was my goal. In fact, this week I spent 94,78$, bringing the total to 368,33$ for the month, and that was approximately how much I spent last month. I put more money in that category and now I aim for a grand total of 450$ MAX for the month.
This week was way higher than intended, and this was completely unintentional. I made several mini trips to the grocery instead of only one. Every time I went, it was small amounts, so I didnāt realize all those tiny amounts were adding up 
For the two next weeks, Iāll try to go at only one place for the week. Weāll see!
Week 3?!
Groceries: $86/$100
Eating out: $0/$100
Successfully went to Costco and kept to my grocery list! I feel like I can potentially make it!
This week I need to shop for mr krmitās birthday cake, which is one of my exceptions to the budget.
Probably gonna pick up a fancy coffee tomorrow before work.
I am in Michaelās frequent buyer program, as I guess you are too. I get a senior discount in addition to the other discounts. I donāt know if they do that in Canada, but if youāre not getting it and you qualify, it might get you a bit more?
I hesitated to post this, because youāre so good at being frugal, but donāt know what you have or havenāt got that we have here!
Check in #3: have been spotty at checking the budget before spending, but doing better than not-at-all, so thatās fine. Progress not perfection.
Thanks! I actually did not know they stacked discounts.
Tuesday, October 22 is the thirdweekly check-in. **Nothing has to be perfect! Just check in by posting on this thread and mention where youāre at with your budgetober objectives.
This can be posting how much youāve spent this week, what problems you ran into with your plan, or asking for help if you need it.
After you post your check-in, myself or another mod will get you a special-edition week 3 budgetober badge. If you still havenāt gotten your badge by Tuesday, please bat signal me (@anomalily) and Iāll make sure you do! (If youāre missing week 1 or 2 also let me know)
Check-in #3
October is flying by! Iām still on track to spend less than $50 on dining out this month, although this upcoming week is our anniversary and thatāll probably clear out the rest of the money I have in that category.
Iāve been drinking through my tea stash this month, and yesterday I finally ordered a restock of my favorite blend plus two new ones that seemed really good. The total came out to $86.30, which feels like an exorbitant amount of money to spend on tea, but 1) I know Iām going to love it, 2) this amount of tea will probably last us for at least 2-3 years based on how long it took us to get through the tea we bought last year, and 3) itās way cheaper than going out to the fancy boba place that weāve been going to recently. I split the cost between my fun category & my dining out category, since itās mostly a fun thing but will also replace going out to get fancy beverages.
Everything else is pretty much on track for the month. I should really do some meal planning today - weāve been doing lots of snacky meals because weāve both been tired. I just want to make sure weāre getting enough fruit & veggies 
I think Iām pretty frugal but I spend ~$60 on fancy tea every 6ish months, so Iām actually pretty impressed at the 2-3 years!
Week 3 Check-In!
Groceries were at $66.36 this week, putting me at $219.40 / $300.
I only spent $35.14 on eating out this week-- all on coffee & breakfast. Iāve been stressed making myself breakfast in the mornings before work and have been eating out as a result-- Iām going to try and fix that by making myself a breakfast casserole and eating on it throughout the week!
Going strong so farā¦ just trying to keep it up. Hopefully this will help me make (& stick to) a more realistic eating-out budget moving forward.
Week three!
Iām going to recast that extra savings goal because I didnāt realize November is a 3 paycheck month this year and I always save ridiculous amounts those months. Iāll exceed savings goals for the year there! 
So Iāve recast the $400 I was going to put towards extra savings to go half to mutual aid cash and half to all the things friends are asking me to do this month. I disappear all summer because of my job so then when I reemerge in fall I end up going to a lot of events and concerts and pumpkin patches such. Iād kind of forgotten about this and didnāt plan for it very well when I decided to go hard Christmas shopping earlier in the month. 
Gifts and fun money spending: $469/$580 
Comfort food is at $74/$150 still. 
Eating out with others: $220/$266 
I didnāt include groceries in my tracking this month cuz we consistently come in under budget there, but for various reasons, mostly environmental sustainability related, Iāve kind of returned to eating more the way I used to when I was single and on a very tight budget. Thatās been feeling so good and Iām hoping it might be a larger shift toward being able to be more proactive about cooking and less reactive cuz Iām too sad and tired to plan! Hoping to crystalize this in a few months during Snack-uary. 
Week 3 checkin:
I put an order in to Amazon for a gift and some wrapping supplies (resealable bags and red & white twine to tie tags etc. to gifts). That was $40.96 CAD from my Christmas budget.
Soā¦ this weekā¦
$3.00 Gift baskets (cash)
$1.25 Cellophane wrap (cash)
$2.00 Old fashioned canning jar (cash) to be used as part of a gift
$76.00 Michaels - spray paint, ribbon, shredded crinkle paper filler, seasonal stamps, ink pad, tags (cash)
$40.96 Amazon - gift, food grade bags and red & white twine (cc)
Total = $123.21 CAD
Only thing I regret is buying tags. I found a whole whack leftover from last year when I got home from Michaels.
I had $295 CAD in my Christmas budget the beginning of October. I have $171.79 left. I will be adding more in November and December. So this is not bad.
I have nine gift baskets to do, but some will be smaller than others. Also, I am making a lot of the gifts. That will, hopefully, keep costs under control.
Groceries: $478/800
Dining/Takeout: $168/450
Shopping: $168/300
Really pleased with where we are. Dining will go up as we just had a meal out that hasnāt shown up in monarch, and shopping will also go up with some planned purchases.
Can you return the tags?
I could haveā¦if I hadnāt opened them and tossed the packaging. But I did that before pulling out my gift card tag box that I thought only had old Christmas card gift tags. It turns out I had some hm gift tags in there, as well as some Dollarama gift tags. 
. I will have tags for a while. This year Iām storing all the actual gift tags in a small zippered bag, inside that tag box (an old fruitcake box), so they donāt get lost among the bigger tags made from old Christmas cards.
Week 3
Husband still hasnāt completed the budget. I am planning out our holiday today, and we havenāt had time to do the shopping I had planned, so it will probably work out by accident!
Had a talk with Hubby. We decided to go halves on a couple of expensive gifts for one of our daughters and her hubby. It is beyond what I planned for a gift budget, so they will not be getting gift baskets. Only one gift each.
My week 3 check-in:
lots of āfluffā in this cycle, but a good 1/3 of the 15 fluffy transactions were charity and another 2 were books, so I donāt feel all that bad about it.
What I can feel āgoodā about is that I found 2 instances of fraud that I seem to have successfully disputed (at the cost of having to once again re-enter all of my recurring payments since theyāve cancelled the card, again), which will bring back $190. I wonder how many similar instances Iāve missed by not carefully reviewing my expenses in the past? And why is it (seemingly) always delivery food companies (which I otherwise donāt use!) that I get defrauded through? This was a āsomeone put my card into their doordash and made 2 orders from Target in NYCā and the last one was āsomeone broke into my grubhub accountā (which I immediately cancelled).
I also found a mystery late fee on a loan that I have been repaying automatically since Jan 2021 with the same settings, where the payment went through on the first as usual, but I am shown as in arrears. I have a message into my bank asking the WTF YO.
While this was a frustrating week due to actually having to make several phone calls due to these SNAFUās that someone else caused, it was a win in that I āsavedā the >$200 and the presumed hit to my credit rating that I wouldnāt have even noticed had I been doing ābusiness as usualā and just figuring everything was correct/normal.
Yay/boo.
Iāve been really sick the last couple weeks, so Iām checking in for Weeks 2 and 3!
Week 2
I spent $6.45 on breakfast burritos, bringing my total up to $8.60.
Week 3
This week was a lot higher because I had an unexpected lunch out-of-town to the tune of $15.51. The weekās spending was $19.81, bringing my monthly total up to $28.41.
Being sick has kept me home, but I have also started preparing breakfast burritos for the week. Regardless of how early I get up, I seem to need a grab-and-go breakfast unless Iāll be staying home for the day. Breakfasts have never been a strong point for me, which is part of why Iāve been hitting fast food so hard over the last couple months.
