@PinkTutu Would credit card sleeves work?
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Week #1 Check in:
food: 218/600. I did a bigger than expected grocery shop, it’s a little high for one week. and I bought bakery treats for my handspinning class.
hobbies: 195/200. purchased fabrics, got 5 or 6 sewing patterns printed and picked up some new needles. I usually make a list through the month of things to pick up and then purchase them all in the first few days of the month. Hopefully I can stick with $0 for the rest of the month, but we’ll see what happens!
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They are. a .pdf here. I used to transfer files with someone via the net and a freebie program for transferring big files. Would that work do you think?
We used wetransfer fyi.
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Thank-you to everyone for your help with the laminating savings challenges issue! I downloaded free savings challenges.
Phoned Staples. They were going to charge $3/page.
Because we’re visiting a smaller community, we phoned a local print shop. They were going to charge $1/page. I actually needed 10 1/2 pages.
So we headed to the local Dollar Store. They sold self adhesive laminating sheets 3/$2.50. I took four packages to the counter and the clerk was hurried and flustered. I didn’t think anything of it, but the people I was with pointed out to me in the parking lot that the clerk hadn’t charged me for one package! So I ended up with 4 packages (12 sheets) for $7.50 + 15% tax. Not bad!
Company set me up with a ruler, cutting board and exacto knife. It took about an hour to do them all. Only flubbed up once. Two of them stuck together, and consequently got laminated together.
So…solution cost $7.50 CAD.
Other expenses today?
$1.99 some hair elastics (on cc. I didn’t bring my cash for that)
$4.80 a large spoon of thread (ditto)
$30 a haircut ( paid cash)
So far, so good. No pilfering from one envelope for another.
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Oh, wait, extra bonus goal: going to take all this figuring out and then do the numbers to see if this is a good year to do a Roth conversion.
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Purchased some clothing from Banana Republic which is fast fashion but the pants look good on short curvy women so I’m doing my best. Can get tops elsewhere. Likely to return a large portion of the order so I’ll report back when I know how much $ I spent on what I’m keeping
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Week 2, I have $200 saved so far and about that also spent on eating out. Will need to be mindful for the next few weeks of eating out/ drinks spending.
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I have a House Maintenance sinking fund that kind of just throw money into monthly and from windfalls, ha. If I have a known upcoming replacement, I’ll do my best to put in enough monthly that it will be covered when it happens, but I try to keep a slight buffer as well. If you need to pull from it for unexpected costs, you can amortize that into the future as a known amount that needs to be refilled, but it won’t break your budget all in one month.
For medical bills, do you have an HSA to pull from? I know people like to use them for retirement savings, but I’d rather pull from there than have ANOTHER “medical costs” savings category.
It makes me feel better to have some savings categories that I know we’ll be spending from split out separately from an emergency fund. I don’t like pulling from our emergency fund for things that aren’t actually emergencies, which is silly since it’s all in the same savings account, but it’s how my brain prefers it.
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Week 1 check in -
I bought $5 of black nail polish instead of a whole Halloween shirt, and a $1 Reece’s pumpkin at the grocery store, which comes from my spontaneous.
Otherwise, I haven’t bought anything from the “no” categories! This is especially hard with kids clothes, they’re just so cute, but I can do it.
We’ve unfortunately spent a lot of money on takeout this month because my parents are in town this week, and we’ve treated them to lunch, as well as gone to a pumpkin patch with ice cream. Those were unexpected expenses, but worth it.
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I didn’t see anybody posted it in the meantime so I typed up and spoilered the Thrifty guidelines here to spare server space/ visual clutter.
August 2024 USDA Thrifty Food Plan
They publish Thrifty separately from Low, Moderate and Liberal for some reason. I wanted to post all of them but I’m having so many formatting issues I think I’m just going to post Thrifty and sum up the other plans for the likely age demographic on this board at the bottom.
| Individuals: | Weekly: | Monthly: |
|---|---|---|
| Child: | ||
| 1 year | $25.30 | $109.80 |
| 2-3 years | $38.10 | $165.00 |
| 4-5 years | $41.50 | $179.80 |
| 6-8 years | $46.20 | $200.40 |
| 9-11 years | $53.50 | $231.80 |
| Male: | ||
| 12-13 years | $57.20 | $247.80 |
| 14-19 years | $72.20 | $312.80 |
| 20-50 years | $70.50 | $305.30 |
| 51-70 years | $62.20 | $269.60 |
| 71+ years | $59.30 | $257.20 |
| Female: | ||
| 12-13 years | $49.40 | $214.20 |
| 14-19 years | $57.40 | $248.50 |
| 20-50 years | $56.20 | $243.50 |
| 51-70 years | $52.20 | $226.30 |
| 71+ years | $57.50 | $249.00 |
Bonus: a Gen Z or Millennial female 20-50 would be allocated $262.40 on the Low, $320.40 on the Moderate, and $408.20 for the Liberal food plans; for males those numbers are $302.50, $379.40, and $462.10 respectively.
Personally even the Thrifty plan is easily three-quarters over again what I spend for all groceries (not just food) going back the last decade, but I recognize I’m a weirdo outlier with the grace of few medical needs at this point in my life.
For check-in: I have nearly finished exporting all my transactions, now I just have to build a spreadsheet I actually like…
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I know it’s already week 2, but is it to late to get involved???
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A good day:
- No expenditures today.
- Paid my cc bill in full.
- Updated my financial records.
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Go ahead!
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Hmmmmm. The brewery I go to for trivia is having a Plantiness + Tattoo party, where you get to decorate a pot, choose a houseplant to put in it, AND get a spooky/plant-y tattoo. Tickets are ~$160.
Plants and tattoos are not on my buy/no buy list, so I have to make an actual decision. I think I’m going to do it if I can convince my sister or SIL to go too.
ETA - …anybody from NoCo want to drive to FoCo on the 18th and spend some money with me? 
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Another good day today. No expenses.
- off to a crafting group where I darned a pair of socks…badly I might add. They were hand knit alpaca socks…otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered.
- dropped off the secondary DTC form at the doctor’s clinic.
- Hubby made tuna sandwiches for lunch.
- processing food from a relative’s garden. Beets, spaghetti squash, poblano peppers and Hungarian peppers. All going in the freezer in one form or another.
- started watching a Great Courses course I bought a long time ago.
- printed off course notes for a free online health class I’m taking through the health authority.
- drew the line at printing out a time log for the course. Sat down and created one in Numbers on my iPad. Good thing. I would never have had room to fit all I do in a day on a weekly grid on sheet of 8 1/2 x 11” paper!
- leftovers for supper.
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Checkin in #2
October 1st:
- Big grocery store: $21.01
- Asian grocery store: $41.78
October 4th:
- Aldi: $31.46
- Asian grocery store: $50.07
October 6th:
- Apple picking: $10.75
October 8th:
- Aldi: $16.02
Total spent so far: $170.77
Remaining budget: $159.23
Definitely didn’t have to spend as much this week. And, in fact, what I did spend was a lot of “fun” groceries not “necessary” groceries. Apple picking was the kind of pleasant outdoor friend time that happened to also be grocery shopping. 
The aldi run included ice cream and hard pear cider. I decided this time to include that alcohol in with groceries, since it felt spiritually appropriate. It’s an art, not a science.
I’m running low on prepared things and will need to do another round of meal prep/planning.
The second run was a little less successful than the first, mostly because I felt a little overwhelmed. But making dumplings was a huge success, and really great because I could freeze 75% of them and then cook them from frozen. Much less worry about trying to optimize before things went bad.
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I was away at a conference this week so haven’t had a chance to update. I’m a Monday-Sunday person. So for Week 1, I failed at everything, it was an off week. This week has gone much better so far- being at a conference kind of forces you to track your spending to make filing an expense report later easier. So far, I only bought one stationery thing last Friday and haven’t bought anything since, so I am proud of that. Will check back in Monday morning for a full recap of this week
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Week 2 Checkin ~~~
Tuesday, October 16 is the second weekly check-in. Nothing has to be perfect! Just check in by posting on this thread and mention where you’re at with your budgetober objectives.
This can be posting how much you’ve 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 2 budgetober badge. If you still haven’t gotten your badge by Tuesday, please bat signal me (@ anomalily) and I’ll make sure you do! (If you’re missing week 1, also let me kno)
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Week 2 check in:
- Not going crazy on take out while on vacation for 9 days - leaving tomorrow to the 12th
Used a Starbucks gift card at the airport for egg bites and London fog, $0.00
Bought dinner - $40 and we ate almost everything except a few fries.
- Starbucks gift card completely used up. All take out fully consumed. Tried to minimize on it where possible but it was hard when we were both sick
- Eating all the food that I purchase on vacation- I often over buy.
- We consumed all the stuff we got for snacks on the trip except for half a box of crackers that I ended up hating. Made sure when we ate out I only got one thing when I wanted 2, and told friend that if I wanted the second part I could get it after I finished 1. Needless to say I didn’t need the second part. Also, for the place that has breakfast available I grabbed some extra yogurts and fruit for the trip which was really helpful.
Bought road snacks we are working on- $44- all gone!
- Eating down the freezer and cupboards at my mom’s until the end of the month starting this tomorrow.
Feeling pretty good about the challenge for myself, even friend was impressed with the thoughtfulness of it. Now to go home and work on the freezer.
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Week 2 Check-In:
Week 2 Spending: $268
Total Spending So Far: $1,130
Budget Left for October: $1,870
I would’ve spent even less if I cooked more at home! I hope to inventory my fridge/freezer and eat down what I have next week.
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