Iām doing fine on my budget and should come in on or under target, especially since some friends who I thought might come into town have canceled their trip. Iāll also be returning a few things I got that ended up not used for the friendās birthday cake. The recipe said you could add a ganache to an already rich cake, but I ran out of time/fucks and it absolutely did not need more chocolate.
The main thing Iāve learned/noticed is that I am having a lot of trouble actually using the groceries I buy. I have all the pieces, but I donāt want to actually cook anything. I sort of knew this before, but itās more obvious when Iām paying closer attention to how much food Iām buying.
Well, Budgetober has been a real eye opener for meā¦I havenāt closely reviewed my budget since June-ish and that was before my new mortgage payments kicked in! Yikes. At least now I know where Iām at!
Oct 28 check-in, month to date
Total food spend: $477 / $525
just restaurants: $101 / $125
I realized that the $525 target number was incorrect, because that was supposed to be grocery excluding restaurants, not all-in. Google Sheets did something with the average calculation which I hadnāt expected. Regardless of how we got here, having that number as a visible thing was surprisingly effective.
Total spend = $1,667.09
Budget = $1,700
Remaining = $32.91
Iām kind of amazed that I still have ~$30 left to get me through the weekend! It was tough and I didnāt make my original goal of $1,400 but this has been the lowest spending month in since September 2017. My monthly average is about $2,500 so nice improvement. Iām hoping to continue this into November and December so I can finish the year off under $30k in spending.
This weekend is the final checkin for budgetober - feel free to checkin anytime between now and Tuesday, November 2nd. Iāll post the link to get mailed your stickers next week!
Nothing has to be perfect! Just check in. Better to do something than do nothing and wait for it to be perfect. 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, I will get you a special-edition week 4 budgetober badge. If you still havenāt gotten your badge (for this week or Week 3) by Sunday, please bat signal me (write @anomalily) and Iāll make sure you do!
Grocery:
I am still real good in this category, even after I recast it last week so I could do some emotional spending on stickers. We spent $40 each on our usual household grocery run and $40 each because I was in the neighborhood of the fancy grocery store we used to go to by my partnerās old apartment and we needed to stock up on goodies we canāt get other places.
I think we are going to do another splurgy stock up this weekend at Trader Joeās because I still have $70 left in this category. Although some of that money might get wiggled into the category ofā¦
Going out:
I was pretty fancy free in this category this week. We did a nice dinner out on Sunday because we both really wanted a treat and I got myself a few other small treats throughout the week because things were hard. I have $10 left in this category and going in Halloween weekend that might be tough to stick to. Iām going to try though! I donāt think Iāll be going out, so that will help.
I love the increased tracking Iāve been doing with food spending and Iām going to keep doing it going forward. And the soft-core meal planning too. Our food waste has gone way down this month.
Bought a the witchy humble bundle. I canāt resist a truck load of ebooks. Between humble bundle and verso sales I have a trove of ebooks that have never even made their way to my kindle. Maybe that should be one of my categories for bingo next year
Check-in
X = dialed-in expenses (including mortgage)
Y = current expenses (including mortgage)
Oct 2
54% X
38% Y
Oct 8
68% X
47% Y
Oct 15
84% X
59% Y
Oct 22
103% X
72% Y
Oct 29
124% X
87% Y
Ok, ok! I also realized that this actually includes the extra $ I put toward my mortgage principal this month, which amounts to around 6-7% of the total. I then had a thought that maybe I shouldnāt include the mortgage at all, but it is in truth nearly identical (which is a bit hilarious) to what I had in 2019, so it really doesnāt make very much difference (except for the fact that Iāve started playing with paying more towards the principal to pay it down faster, even though it doesnāt make mathematical sense to do so, whereas I did not do that previously).
If I spend no more money in October (which I donāt guarantee) Iāll have basically landed nearly in the middle between X and Y, which is good! Better than good, probably. Iāll eventually probably get down to 100% X, but maybe not! Weāre starting to see inflation, and price of goods, gasoline, heating oil have also been rising. It might beprobably is unreasonable to try to hit a very dialed in spend from two years ago! Prices do rise, after all, things wear out and break. This is the natural course of things, and being alive does not cost nothing.
Week 4 check-in! I went over budget in a few categories but that is to be expected. We are still setting up the house. Iām very proud of myself for where we are on groceries and eating out. Those are the two Iāve really been working on lately.
Date Night: $82/$66
Household: $77/$50
Groceries: $628/$600 - monthly Costco run was this week
Books: $29/$30
Dining Out: $290/$300
Personal Care: $100/$75 - got a massage and paid more to have her come to me
Baby Supplies: $273/$150- Target had $25 gift card if you spend $100 on diapers
Dining out for me: $321 (whoops $349, I went to trivia Wednesday and the charge just cleared). I picked this month to try out a meal subscription my friend works for. The first week was meh and I thought I was definitely going to cancel, the second week is much more delicious. I need to email them because I pay for the week like 9 days before the meals are delivered and it makes it impossible to freeze the subscription so I can slow down and make a final decision.
Dining out Mr Darling: $489 but this is kind of fake. He deliberately paid for two group dinners and is storing the money in Venmo (his bank was having issues syncing) so this should be his group meals for the next big while.
Dining out both: $149. But we got takeout again tonight.
Groceries: $420. We tried a new division of labor out where he meal plans and grocery shops and I cook and I think it ended up with a lot of unused veg in the fridge, weāve almost run out of milk twice and we got a lot of takeout. This probably could use some tweaking.
Yikes. I am on propane and supposedly prices may be up by 50% this winter. Propane is supposedly expected to have the largest jump, with oil not far behind. Well, it is what it is. I am not going to freeze myself anymore, I am too old for that. I wish my wood stove would arrive though.
Iām pretty sure I accidentally counted some non-grocery purchases in this as well, but thatās pretty good!
Eating Out: $83.58/$60
Over, but considering how badly I underestimated how much I could use food as a way of connecting people/paying folks back for rides, I donāt feel too bad about this. I shuffled some funds from the āpending tattoo fundā to cover the difference.
What we actually spent: FOOD: $1770/1800
Groceries: $1005/$1,250
All non-grocery food: $765/$560
Iām very happy we stayed within the overall category amount!
Health
Fitness subscription: $20/$20
couldnāt see any medical appointments that cost money this month.
Household
Utilities: $226/$330 (Water, gas, mobile phones, internet. Electricity next month.)
Mortgage: $1740/$1740
Cleaners: $240/$240
Petrol & Parking: $32/$100
Daycare: $820/$820
Thinking through and planning our known spending made me way less stressed about the other spending we did this month. Especially the food - itās heaps of spending, but each spend felt thoughtful and I enjoyed everything we ate. Discretionary was my waves wand category of spending that was much more on an āas neededā basis. Iām most of the way through the kitchen item upgrades I had planned, which feels quite good.
$15.40 
Well, it is what it is. I am not going to freeze myself anymore, I am too old for that. I wish my wood stove would arrive though. 
