I put alcohol drunk at home in grocery, but I drink very little of it. If I drank more, I’d probably have a separate alcohol category.
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When I drank, I always tracked mine in a special category called “whiskey pig” which is beer/wine for home. I just hated getting an expensive beer throwing my grocery data a bunch, and also want to know the real cost of beer.
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No. The grocery stores sell wine now, but it’s too new for wine to be a grocery.
I withdrew another chunk of my cash today. So far it’s 200/300 withdrawn. But this week has groceries (done) and then camping supplies, and the past few weeks also had some maternity and gift shopping
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When we tracked closely, wine at home went in grocery, but then so did dog food and cleaning supplies, so…
That’s how we do it. I also really love the $6 Wegman’s rose and I’ll buy 4 bottles at once and then not buy any for 2 months so I figure it evens out. Same with dog food, I buy it maybe twice a quarter and even though it’s a bigger expense (though hopefully not as much now that the research is saying grain free isn’t necessary and my pup doesn’t have every allergy!) and I’m just too lazy to separate it all out. But then again I’m also not a person who tracks budget super closely. We do broad categories: rent, regular bills, one off bills, groceries, and social/eating out
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Yes, lately our categories have been “automatic payments that come from checking” (rent and utilities) and “stuff we bought with the credit card” (food, fuel, and anything else).
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I have an “Amazon” category because I don’t like the effort to break up the spending between a bunch of categories.
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week 1: 107.28
week 2: check in $119.47
- 2 iced coffee on way to apple picking that I had forgotten
- 9.04 networking lunch with coworker
- 6.39 bulk rice
- 7 bulk nuts that I had to go back for
- 6.23 budget grocery #1
- 4.98 premium grocery
- 45.83 budget grocery #2
- 6 mustard stand at the market
- 2 peppers at market
ETA:
15 for pork shoulder through the ‘cheap food’ app which I will pick up tomorrow and cook on Monday
ETA 2:
and another $15 on other 50% off food (mushrooms, ground Halal chicken, duck breast x 2) that we saw because we were going to the store to get the 15lb pork shoulder
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Week 2 recap (ETA amounts are monthly totals so far, not just Week 2):
- Food: $157.46/$275. Yeah, gonna have to watch this. I should be good for lunches the rest of the month, and I’m stocked up on tea (very important), but still.
- Phone: $31.59/$30. Whomp whomp.
- Transportation: $42.30/$60. Gas and a badly-needed car wash.
- Gym/health: $25.15/$35.14.
- Clothes/Personal care: $15/$75. Bought desperately-needed socks. Like, my thumb punched holes in the old ones when I put them on.
- Household: $97.04/$91.55. Forgot I needed to buy tissues. A little over, but should be done with this category for the month.
- Misc: $48.11/$48.11
Damage so far: $416.65/$614.80
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WEEK 2 CHECK-IN
Checks 
indicate “I think this category is closed for the month”
Rent: 1595/1617
Food: 153/800
Transit: 87/300 - not happy with all the lyfts I took this week, but I would have been late to work otherwise
Coffee: 15/75 - last weekend’s coffee supplied at nerd fest, that was nice of them
Games/dev/stuff: 77/84 - Halloween-themed keycaps for demo keyboard and long-anticipated game WHAT THE GOLF? Guess I won’t be getting any more games this month. Dang keycaps, why you gotta be so expensive
Tech: 14/25 - normal hosting fees
Travel: 272/450 - Dang $50 cab ride home from the airport, but I don’t take transit alone after dark, wygd
Social: 65/150 - This is almost entirely the Halloween costume. And most of the pieces came from thrift stores!
Giving: 134/250
Health/home: 175/400 - including $42 impulsive Target shopping and $57 emergency/impulse massage
This week was REALLY hard, being hit by the fatigue truck during a special week at work (coworker’s in from another country for us to team up on a project, I can’t exactly work remote or miss days or really even slack off UGH). So I spent more than I wanted, ordered delivery 2x more than I should have, got a massage instead of just taking excedrin and hoping for the best. But overall I’m pleased with my month to date!
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To satisfy my curiosity, I checked Google Maps to see how much we walked for groceries today. Roughly 10km all told. 6km of that was basically to save $1 on a jar of mustard. And because walking outdoors is good for my brain when I am spinning.
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Results:
Failure: Once again I went out to eat three times instead of twice. This is still much less than my usual average. I think I need to adjust my plan and say that it will be allowed thrice a week.
Success:
Went to yoga once and the gym twice.
Got a massage (but didn’t go to the gym after. The massage screwed up my arm)
Got my house cleaned
Voted
I call that a massive success.
Additionally, I got a cancellation appointment with the specialist I’d been waiting many months to see. She gave me a bunch of advice, and some of it is relevant here. I’m changing my goals for the rest of the month. I’m not allowed to do yoga any more, but I have to be exercising every day. So instead of a yoga/ gym goal I have a daily exercise goal. And because I am human it’s a 6x a week goal.
This week I will:
Exercise 6x
Go to therapy
Eat out 3x or less
See the dietician
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You should including shoveling as exercise because it is!
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Previously on Budgetober…
Groceries: $70 / $250. Bought milk, cheese, bagels and have been doing lots of pantry cooking.
Home goods/misc: $0 / $50
Utilities: $47.29 / $320. Water bill gets paid next week.
Internet: $49 / $50. No further expenses anticipated.
Alcohol: $0 / $30
Fun money: $5 / $25
Travel: $0 / $250
Wedding gift: $46/97 / $100
This week was real cheap! Next week is travel and wedding week and is most likely when I’ll need to recast the budget. I’ve already scheduled an unexpected haircut.
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TIL I am far less likely to purchase cookies from the supermarket if I do my grocery shopping online. I have been doing the grocery shopping mostly online because it’s easier to see the total cost while I’m shopping, and it’s having clear changes in my behaviour…
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Week 1 we had:
Restaurants: $75.54/$200
Grocery: $31.18/$300
Now for week 2:
Restaurants: $158.06/$200
Oh, restaurants… I have a really hard time controlling this. The newest additions this week were fast casual burritos (basically Chipotle but a local place) and then two drinks and two appetizers at a farm-to-table type place (plus 20% tips). It does not seem like a lot for this much money. It was all good, but damn does it add up. I’m not good at resisting this. I think if we had two steady jobs, I’d be okay with a $300/month restaurant budget, but we don’t, so I need to figure this out.
Grocery: $84.01/$300
This is such random stuff. We picked up groceries for my mom. We went to an old timey candy place and bought too much candy. We bought some local farm produce. We also bought some stuff for our new apartment (moving Tuesday!) – olive oil is the big one. We got a frozen pizza to make the night we move in since we probably won’t know where all our cooking stuff is.
I’m okay with where we are at groceries right now. This will probably go up this week because we’re moving to a new place. I need to calm down on restaurants, since we’re halfway through the month but 75% through the budget.
We have put down a security deposit on a new apartment, a pet deposit, and a half month’s rent on a new place, so I feel like we are spewing money all over the place. I’m pretty anxious about it but I’m trying to be patient about the job situation.
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A little late this week but everything was Difficult yesterday. Here’s how last week shaped up:
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I never answered what I used to track, and it’s on my mind so I’ll mention it now.
I’ve used Mint for years, and I definitely still use it to check balances and the overall picture. However, I’ve had frustrations with using it to track our “yours, mine, and ours” finances since we’ve moved in; it’s just not built for that.
Since August, bf and I have been trying a new app called Zeta (www.askzeta.com) that is built for couples finances. The interface is less refined than Mint, but it lets you look at shared and individual financial accounts together or separately, and it seems a lot less glitchy/weird about importing data from our shared accounts. If it sounds interesting to try, you can PM me for a referral code and we’ll both get data-downloading-superpowers! (I’m not posting for that; I just want to share a tool I think is useful. 
)
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Checking in now instead of tonight because (#1) I need a break from mad housecleaning, and (#2) all I’m doing for the rest of the day is more mad housecleaning anyway, no plans to leave the house to go shopping.
Home improvement: Still $0/$300–We had a freeze (and snow) last week and my plumber cancelled for an emergency exploded pipe at someone’s house and hasn’t gotten back to me to reschedule. I don’t blame him for making an emergency a priority, obviously, but I really want this back on my calendar.
Bills: $60/$60–All done for the month
Auto: $31/$40
Food: $143/$250
Sports/Health/Hobbies: $4/$25
Travel: $0/$0–Prepaid birthday trip done, no extra $$ spent.
Cat: $398/$400–Food and litter stocked up for the month, so should be good to go.
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i’m down, but not totally sure how to find the check in threads?
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