Woohoo! Cute cat sticker? Iām in. Been listening to the podcast for awhile (except my phone doesnāt think thereās been new ones in over a year in two different apps) but forums are very overwhelming.
I donāt consistently keep a budget, but do it for the month about 3-4 months of the year. This is enough to keep me on track usually. So October is now one of my months. Tracking everything using an app. Of over is one of the two months of the year that I get three pay checks instead of two (the way the Fridayās line up) but Iām budgeting as if I only get two paychecks with the plan to invest the rest.
Update on this: I found the issue after back and forth with my network (it had to do with changing podcast networks thereby changing the URL and breaking alllll the RSS links - Iām going to propogate the new URL and do a āhey hello peopleā episode this weekend)
High spender here. This is my householdās planned spending for the month. I also put away some money for annual or non-monthly expenses, but my goal this month is to think through what we spend and our habits. Our household is 2 adult, kid, baby, 2 cats.
Under a cut for length!
Planned October Spending
Food
Groceries: $1,250 (5 weeks, $250/week between local butcher/baker/grocer, supermarket, bulk food store)
All non-grocery food: $560 (Cafe twice a week, takeaway dinner and lunches twice a week or so)
Discretionary
Fun: $150 (tv subscriptions, a bit of money each for patreon, books, etc over the month)
Charity: $200
Health
Fitness subscription: $20
couldnāt see any medical appointments that cost money this month.
Household
Utilities: $330 (Water, gas, mobile phones, internet. Electricity next month.)
Mortgage: $1740
Cleaners: $240
Petrol & Parking: $100
Daycare: $820
Total: $5,410
Some Unknowns:
Cat vet visit
Swimming lesson prices for kid
I have a big wish list of items in addition to this. Iām trying to price them out and then buy on sale or when necessary (e.g. weāll buy an air filter this month because the one I want doesnāt really go on sale and has a lead time).
Iām moving into a new & larger apartment this month (in a new city!), so all of my expenses are new. Iāll be figuring out my new baseline for sure ā but the most important thing for me is I want to stay within my budget for moving expenses and some new furniture.
This will be my first Halloween living in my own place, so Iām really, really looking forward to decorating and giving out candy.
Instead of dollar amount goals Iām tracking time spent on all things cashflow. In the past Iāve made various budgets but stopped looking at them immediately. So instead of āsticking to a planā I want to give myself space to figure out what is realistic and practical.
My plan is to spend at least 2 hours per week to work on money tracking and planning.
I am tracking my progress in a document on my laptop and will report each week here.
HELLO I want to do Budgetober and I am hopefully going to use NOTION to do it! I also have a backup digital planner just in case. I promise I have done all the Actual Work for setting up a budget but I wrote two papers today and I am very tired so I am going to bed I promise I will update this post in the morning.
Iām in. Our food budget has gotten out of control, particularly our take out portion. The actual dollar amount is too embarrassing to admit so Iām going to set Octoberās food budget as a percentage of Septemberās spend. The goal is to reduce our food spending by at least 25 percent.
I will track in ynab and update weekly. Groceries and Friday take out were well within the weekly allotment. Now we just need to actually stick to our menu plan.
You know, I like this and Iāll participate too. Just on food, and just to try and keep it no WORSE than last month. So 100% cap, all in for restaurant/coffee shop/groceries. (Although 93% of our total food spending last month was groceries so really, this is about groceries).
The exception will be if we end up buying beef
rambling explanation no one needs
(this can be unpredictable- my aunt is our rancher lately and their butcher dates depend on things like, how the local 4H kids are doing and if an animal gets injured, or a young bull decides heās an asshole so he gets culled. Current beef weāre working through is a very old bull who she thinks got dementia or something because heās always been nice but attacked my uncle a couple times. So he went to freezer camp. Which also means weāre doing a LOT of tacos cuz whoBOy thatās some games beef. ANYWAY, all this to say sometimes Iāll get a text out of the blue being like āneed beef??ā So itās not something we closely plan!)
Iāll cross that bridge if we come to it, I suppose, I donāt have a plan there.
Still mainly here to cheer everyone on.
small intro for those who donāt know me
Hi! I spent a long time over at MMM before making my way over here permanently. Household is two adults, one toddler, one dog. Dog gets any dog appropriate food the toddler leaves, squished but present, after meals. This works well since toddlers are deeply unpredictable with their food consumption levels. Husband and I both eat a ton, too. Iām tall, heās broad, weāre all pretty dang active. We also throw money at our health and our values. We buy local, organic, grass fed, etc as weāre able. Try to minimize any convenience foods. Our diet could best be described as ārice plus meat plus vegetables, with some dairy for some razzledazzleā. We also drink boujie AF local roasted coffee, which is expensive. And delicious. And expensive. So, hi!
A day late to the party but Iām in! Iām in desperate need of a budget refresh after moving to a new home, with a new monthly payment to account for and after reeling from the initial cost of moving!
IDK if this will count but Iāve been mulling over how I want to use this Budgetober and I donāt want to do my personal accounting on it (thatās pretty locked in) but instead my business.
My goals:
Establish good bookeeping practices and separation between personal $ and business $.
October Budget:
Grant Fund from Me: $50
Grant Fund from Donations (not in accounting technically): $100
Books: $60
Health Insurance: $70
Dental Insurance: $14
Paid the insurance with my new shiny debit card for my business!!
Attempted to pay out the grants with paypal linked to new shiny bank account for business and got locked out of my online portal and had to do it from my personal account instead. So Iāll have to transfer funds around and pretend after the fact, but I didnāt want to delay disbursement.
Glad to be back to Budgetober. Iām Kristine, now living in Albuquerque after leaving crazy California in May. Iām super relieved to be living in a place thatās more reasonable re: cost of living. Makes my life easier in so many ways. Good month for planning and creating + following a budget, as my company, ArtSpark, just received a grant thatās for assisting artists and creative entrepreneurs with the biz side. My goal is to stretch this grant through 2021 and into January 2022.
Well I finally fixed our main credit card in YNAB and now all our September eating out is actually tracked andā¦ oof. Maybe I should just swap the grocery and eating out budgets?