Excited to participate again this year. I’ve been using YNAB for about two years and I really like it! I want to save $500 this month and cut my eating out spending by half since it was out of control last month. Goals: $500 in savings and cap eating out at $400. I was going to keep eating out at $300 but it’s my birthday month so I know there will be more treats and will have to budget for them.
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Heck yeah. I’m here! Committing to getting my budget set today.
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longtime booster of oh my dollar, first time budgeter since I just retired and am watching expenses! My goal this month is to have no expense un-reviewed in monarch and then I’ll be able to set watches on the various categories once everything is in a sensible category. I dunno that that fits the letter of the law on the challenge but I feel like it fits in the spirit enough for me to take encouragement from this group!
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OK this feels embarrassing for some reason but I want to get 4 outfits I can mix/match for work and I am giving myself $300 to do that. That seems so high! But I have been actively avoiding this for a long time and it’s mainly because I don’t want to go the fast fashion route. At least not for the entire outfit. So preferably high-quality pieces that are made responsibly
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What we have done is come up with a rough budget I get to use without saying anything. When I do something extraordinary, we came up with a “salary” and I get to take the $ from the us account and put it in the me account, in a separate bank.
As we’re oldsters, the “reason” for the me account (sinking fund) is death expenses, but if I decided I wanted to go to Boston and blow $2,000 on a weekend, I could. I might get divorced because it’s just not our usual/agreed upon sort of behavior, but the $ is mine, not ours or his.
On the other hand, if we for whatever reason, have a belt tightening period, I volunteer access to the money to smooth things out/stay out of debt. This comes with the firm understanding that the $ will be replaced when the crisis ends. I don’t charge us interest, so it saves us that expense.
We started as roommates, so we have lived together where our finances were completely separate. When we were first married, that was also true. I think we’d hit our 12th anniversary before it got annoying to me to have separate everything…
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This feels like a good challenge to find the things you want that are responsibly made. I would struggle to do this for $300, but I am impatient.
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Ooo this part especially is so fun! What kind of things do you want to learn about?
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What do you think is a reasonable amount? Would $500 be better? I’m so out of the loop on what things cost
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$300 seems reasonable and maybe even a bit low for non fast fashion work clothes. Poshmark is good option if you want to get second hand too
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Long time OMD fan, first time challenger! I’m working on a revised budget after checking off some financial goals and creating new ones. The car needs a new set of belts, baby!
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I have my goal! My goal is for total spending to be under $7,000. I actually broke out what I think we will spend in categories and it only totals $6,243, so the $7000 goal gives a little wiggle room to go over in some categories. I left off sinking fund categories that I don’t plan on spending any money on this month.
| Category | Goal |
|---|---|
| Rec Center | $50.00 |
| Charitable Giving | $100.00 |
| Life Insurance | $80.00 |
| Student Loan | $535.00 |
| Mortgage | $2,653.00 |
| Electric / Gas | $175.00 |
| Internet | $55.00 |
| Subscriptions | $80.00 |
| Costco ann fee | $120.00 |
| Enrichment | $150.00 |
| Medical | $300.00 |
| Cell Phone | $60.00 |
| Service and Parts | $200.00 |
| DH Fun Money | $25.00 |
| E Fun Money | $25.00 |
| Coffee Shops | $50.00 |
| Household Items | $50.00 |
| Date Night | $100.00 |
| Clothing | $50.00 |
| Books | $30.00 |
| Toiletries | $30.00 |
| Hair/Massage | $50.00 |
| Baby Supplies | $100.00 |
| Uber | $50.00 |
| Gas | $75.00 |
| Groceries | $800.00 |
| Dining Out | $250.00 |
| Total Spending | $6,243.00 |
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OK so my possibly delusional goal is $800/month for food (this is for 2 active people) and no more than $1000 for house stuff.
Yes, that’s a high number in both categories, but significantly lower than they have been this year so far. Turns out buying a house that’s more of a fixer-upper than you thought is expensive, both in terms of work and stress-eating/buying lots of convenience foods 
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My goal is basically get my act back together. But since that is not specific enough, I’m going to focus around food, as I think the rest will follow. Being non-wasteful with the food I do buy, meal planning, eating out only when planned, and keeping my expenses relatively low.
Goal:
- Track all grocery spending
- Establish better meal planning skills and habits
- Make yummy food that is budget friendly and mostly vegetarian and has a focus on getting enough vegetables in my diet
Budget:
$330 for the month of October
This will be a small stretch I think. Hopefully one that feels good and will help me focus on planning and using some pantry items. The magic wand will be ready if it can’t be done without mental health issues.
It is groceries explicitly, not household items or alcohol or restaurants.
This budget feeds approx. 1.5 people. I cook for my household, but Partner eats out much more often and so the majority of the food is consumed by me.
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I’m in! Just started a new job and need to stretch my money until I get my first salary.
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Thanks for sharing this! It’s helpful to hear others’ experiences.
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Uggghhhh well I will join the food bandwagon but in a different way.
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Not going crazy on take out while on vacation for 9 days - leaving tomorrow to the 12th
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Eating all the food that I purchase on vacation- I often over buy.
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Eating down the freezer and cupboards at my mom’s until the end of the month.
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So, normally I do NOT meal plan. The part of cooking I like the most is the creative challenge of … “wtf do we need to eat most, now?” and meal planning sort of does that in, right?
But, if I’m cutting my spend down to 25% of my usual budget I can NOT do that… First weeks’ menu plan:
Tu: mashed & beef
W: Pasta with pepper
Th: Eggplant parm Need to cook the marinara Marinara done
F: Sandwich BLTs? Bacon is cooked, will we have tomatoes? We have tomatoes NO leftovers, thankfully.
Sa: Bok choi stir fry w/rice pilaf Rice pilaf already cooked, in freezer. This will become Sunday’s dinner as we’re drowning in left overs! Saturday’s dinner will be LO eggplant and whatever else is in the fridge!
Su: Egg - quiche? use some of the cooked bacon? See Saturday notes.
M: Grilled cheese
Tu: Chicken thighs
W: Chicken salad
Already have the ingredients for Tu and W dinners. From the farm today, I need to get (maybe) tomatoes and greens as I’d like to have salad with most of these, also bok choi. Some of which I can get as part of the already paid for share, so no new $ spent. I may need to buy eggs too. Cheapest option there is 6 at the cheap supermarket, $1.59, only way I know to get free range eggs that cheap! I did NOT buy eggs, the 1/2 doz went from $1.59 to $2.09 in one week!
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I think my first post here wasn’t super specific so I’m going to give a bit more detail here.
Most of my goals are going to be more related to tracking than to sticking to limits for now cause I haven’t budgeted at all in a while.
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track fitness related expenses. These will be/always are quite high, but most of my socialization is around fitness and it’s a huge part of my life. I’m mostly interested in gaining a realistic sense of what I’m spending here so that I can tighten spending in other areas to accommodate. This will track gym membership, any classes, any specific supplements, gear, etc.
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pay as much of credit card off as possible. As of the 1st this was at around $750. Not sure if paying it all off is possible this month, but I want to get as close as possible — let’s aim to smash at least $500 off. Next month is a 3 paycheck month and I’d prefer to be in a position to save as much as possible of the 3rd paycheck/put it into house stuff.
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track “indulgences” — food that’s for fun/just cause it’s yummy/eating out. If I buy fitness clothing because it’s cute/on sale not because I need the item. Not counting ongoing subscriptions like doggo’s bark box or my audiobook app. Thinking of impulse buys more, treat yoself stuff.
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whoops and finally, I want to record total income as I feel like this is likely going to be a fairly typical month and that would be good to reassess
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Ha. Not that it’s one of my categories I’m tracking, but on the first day of Budgetober, I had to replace all of my tires So much money.
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{{{Hugs!}}}. That’s an expense!
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