ah, ok, i’m figuring this out!
my forecast is:
sharing income: 200
savings: 1151.09
IRA: 500
housing: 724.49
transportation: 158.67
daily living (food, household and cats which has some big expenses this month–planned–etc): 1036.25
personal spending: 6.51
insurance/tax: 128.84
debt payoff: 1003.24
sinking funds: 100
total: 4880.25
check out my budget plan on my youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFoYLnCoK-I&t=1s
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WEEK 2 STATUS: (subtotal/month goal)
Groceries: $102.16 / $220
Eating Out: $25.28 / $75
Gas: $0/$35
Utilities: $0/$120
Miscellaneous: $0/$100
Temps dropped into the 30s (F) - so furnace is turned on.
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2nd week update (totals will include week 1 & 2 numbers combined)
Groceries/Household: $230.75/$460 ($229.25 left)
Gas: $79/$240 ($161 left)
CC’s (interest-bearing): $205/$205 ($0 left)
CC’s (no-interest): $80/$80 (0 left)
HSA: $80/$80 (0 left)
Out to eat: $116.47/$240 ($123.53 left)
Medicine: $81 (this was double what I originally budgeted due to Mom’s medicine needing to be filled elsewhere)
Student loans: $217/$434 ($217 left)
Car insurance: $40/40 (0 left)
Car taxes/tags/maintenance: $254.25/$300 (I think I’m done with this so I’ll say $0 left)
For the upcoming week I’ll probably spend $140 on groceries and maybe $40-50 on gas. As for out-to-eat probably looking at $40 or less. Phone bill will be this week at $57.28 as well.
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Check in:
Food ($500 budgeted)
- $397.20 groceries
- $100.35 going out
- Total: $497.55 (this is a prime candidate for budget recasting… Unless I want to live on the flex budget for the rest of the month)
Home Improvement ($3500 budgeted)
$18.64 Home depot. Will we get off our butts and do the house projects? No one knows!
Gas ($40 budgeted)
$60.24 - $20.24 overflows into flex category
Utilities ($160 budgeted)
All spent fully paid
Coffee ($60 budgeted)
$29 spent. I don’t think we’re gonna go over on this as it’s on subscription.
Phone ($60 budgeted)
Paid for and used I full.
Health ($100 budgeted)
$30 prescriptions
$60 co-pay from iud consultation
Car Registration ($500 budgeted)
Nothing spent yet.
Gifts ($50 budgeted)
Nothing spent yet
Flex ($100 budgeted)
$20.24 spent from gas spending overflow.
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Week 2: $0 groceries. Family visited over the weekend and took us out to eat, but we definitely need to grocery shop. It’ll land in week 3 though.
My secondary goal is not buying premade stuff. I made a cake for husband’s birthday and it was a huge success! Very easy and very tasty. It will be added to my cookbook for sure.
Groceries so far: $104.81/$400
Going out: $19/$50. We went out to lunch with some new friends today. Potentially going to pumpkin patch in week 3.
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- Groceries $260: Spent $89.53. We’ve been stretching our grocery budget unintentionally by being too busy/tired to cook and eating popcorn for dinner or scavenging in the freezer.
- Clothes $35: Still no spending. My husband was supposed to buy himself some new boxers but he forgot.
- Date money: Still $0. We went out for breakfast this morning but it was covered entirely by a gift card that I got for my birthday.
- Miscellaneous: Still at $12.69. I started making the spiders and realized that the yarn I got is going to turn into a ridiculously large spider by the time I’m done. This is my first crochet project and I didn’t realize how big it would get. I may need to find some jumbo pipe cleaners for the legs. I might also get a smaller yarn and crochet hook to make smaller spiders.
- Plants: Still at $22.25. I think I’m done buying plants for the month.
- Biggest challenge this week: I socialized too much this weekend so I’m starting the week at an emotional energy deficit and I’m also dog sitting for my parents. I made a large casserole tonight so I should be okay for food for a few days but I’m going to have to manage my energy wisely so I cook at least once during the week.
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ok, week one and two check in.
planned/spent (or saved) so far:
sharing income: 200/25
savings: 1151.09/11.09
IRA: 500/0
housing: 724.49/0
transportation: 158.67/89.01
daily living (food, household and cats which has some big expenses this month–planned–etc): 1036.25/630.04
personal spending: 6.51/0
insurance/tax: 128.84/0
debt payoff: 1003.24/0
sinking funds: 100/0
total: 4880.25/755.14
i have one category i’ve gone over in, but i think it will even out by the end.
[/quote]
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Week 2 was a lot less spendy. We didn’t get takeaway despite me feeling rotten, because we are keeping track of when we cooked food and ate leftovers on time, or decided that was too hard and ate cereal instead. We didn’t go to the farmers market. I didn’t buy anything fun because I’m either exhausted or working through existing projects. My challenge this week is not paying for new books. I also realised that because of the way the month lands, we may have 5 grocery orders instead of 4, so that may mean I wave the wand in the last week.
Update:
- Groceries: $490/$1,100 ($240/week)
- Ponder’s lunches: $130/$300 ($75/week)
- Takeaway: $75/$240 ($60/week)
- My fun money: $18/$50
- Christmas: 0/$400.
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Week 2 update (tracking totals so far for month, not just what I spent week 2!)
Rent + utilities: $122/$780 - cell phone bill added to electric
Consumer debt: $206/ $800 minimum - rest coming due this week!
Fitness classes: 0/ $50 - used pre-purchased passes
Groceries: $54/$150 (partner covers greater share)
Eating out: $82/$100 - fancy dinner for Sweaty’s birthday - gift card brought this down but I left a generous tip. No other eating out plans this month but have buffer in case.
Emergency savings: $65/$100+
IRA: at least 0/$100
Transportation: 0/$100 - Still haven’t done oil change (no time, still plenty of month left).
Made a couple small purchases with gift cards I have that I’m counting as out of budget fun money but will mention here anyway. Coffee & banana on WAWA gift card ($1.30 or so) and a light sweater/thick long sleeve from work that I LOVE ($16.50 with employee discount, on visa gift card).
Fancy dinner was amazing and SO worth it, though I am glad we had the gift card to offset costs!
This week I’m just worried about when I will find time to meal prep so I don’t either get expensive (relatively) real food out or only eat soft pretzels and PB for work lunches. I’m not as worried about cashflow as I was last week, as Friday’s paycheck was good: I tend to forget about extra shifts I worked if they’re more than a week ago!
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Groceries: 81.77 / 400
Personal: 34.45 / 120
Health: 2624.65 / 4500
Going well, groceries a bit lower than expected but will probably have to do a bigger shop soon to stock up.
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WEEK2 RESULT
Restaurants GeekyGirl: €51.10 – Monday-Thursday lunch. Took Friday off.
Restaurants family: 0€ – really happy about this
Family Groceries: €80.9 -– we got beddings for LG and ethnic foods
Uber GeekyGirl: €12.00 – Monday & Tuesday evening rides from the train station
Uber family: €16.68 – swimming pool with LittleGeek and Thursday evening pick-up
Personal Spending: €190.22 --Did send that €100 to home and bought books on AMZN
This week has been spendy and I realise it’s gonna be hard to stick to the budget with our current childcare arrangement. I really need to reign in the Uber’s spending though and let’s not talk about the restaurants. I didn’t bring lunch to work the whole week but I did take Friday off. That saved us money on lunch out, ubers and childcare.
This week I’m hoping to not take a Uber and to eat lunch at cheaper places. I’m WFH on Wednesday so that’s 4 days to take care of.
TOTAL OCTOBRE – BUDGET REVIEW
Restaurants GeekyGirl: €102.44/150
Restaurants family: 0€/100
Family Groceries: €166.73/250
Uber GeekyGirl: €18.00/30
Uber family: €16.68/50
Personal Spending: €323.13/500
I’m going to be realistic and take my one chance to change the budget. I’m adding €50 to my restaurant budget as there are almost three weeks left; I’m taking some days but I have 9 days at the office. I’m also upping my personal spending by €100; I had to send money to my dad and it wasn’t planned; this is supposed to be my lil sis turn but something came up. I’ll also add €50 to the Ubers as I want to go the swimming pool with LittleGeek and we’ll do some activities during the All Saints’ holidays. So this is the new budget:
Restaurants GeekyGirl: €200
Restaurants family: €100
Family Groceries: €250
Uber GeekyGirl: €50
Uber family: €80
Personal Spending: €600
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Budget check-in since I don’t plan to spend anything today. This includes all October spending as Spent / Budgeted:
Groceries: $153.99 / $275 stretch, $325 more realistic.
Gas: $26 / $55
Eating Out / Entertainment: $29 / $75
Household: $-18 / $75 (took stuff back not needed for a project, got a refund)
Supplements: 59.02 / $60
Cat: $21 / $60
Therapy: $ 150 / $300
Massage: $69 / $120 (used coupon)
Lawn & Garden: $35 / $40
Blinds: $0 / $300
Bus pass: $0 / $20
Gas & Electric: $0 / $5 (saver’s switch credit drops this month, yay)
Professional Registration: $94 / $0
Total using realistic Grocery bill $619 / $1435
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Hey folks, if you haven’t checked in for the first week, please do so! Second week badges will be granted today!
Just write how you’re doing relative to your prediction (numbers or no numbers if not necessary), and what you think your budget will look like for the coming week.
If you’re going to “recast” (new budget estimate for the month) feel free to state that!
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Week 2 check-in
Halfway through the month and I’m pretttyyy maxed out on some categories… do I need to wave a magic wand to recast or can I just reallocate within my categories!?
-
healthcare copays etc: $69 / $158
- $69 - appt
-
transit & gas: $5 / $60
- $5 parking meters
-
groceries: $64 / $150
- $22 subscribe & save from Amazon - this is all my stuff (coffee, creamer, snacks)
- $16 (half of the bill) at the grocery store
- $20 (half of a bill) at another grocery store… already?!
- $6 lemons & chips
-
restaurants & bars: $124 / $250
- $11 takeout bc sad and lazy after work
- $19 (my portion of a group outing that did include mr. flan)
- $14 desperation tamales
- $9 snacks at happy hr for visiting friend
- $16 krav friend retirement brunch
- $20 dinner + dessert with visiting friend
- $14 delicious BBQ where I also got yelled at for bringing water into the restaurant… worth it?!
- $5 froyo
- $11 dinner after yoga
-
clothing/personal care: $99 / $100
- $24 winter leggings with pockets! yeah ok this was just fun splurging
- $45 dresses
- $25 nail health
- $5 makeup
-
hobbies/entertainment: $97 / $100
- $97 airplane ticket to make the 3 leg return flight from Iceland in Dec 2 legs instead
-
non-fixed costs misc.: $88 (~$128) / $150
- $13 gift for friend undergoing surgery on her bday
- $75 my half of a family bday gift
- (future: ~$40 for a tea party for a birthday)
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Here’s what happened last week on Glee…
Month-to-date flexible category spending after Week 2 out of monthly goals.
Electricity: $33.16/ $33
Household Goods: $7.18 /$10
Figure Skating: $25/60
Groceries: $75.08/ $130
Treats: $9.27/ $15
Unicorn Hair: $19.17/ $24
I’m gonna have to wave the 
magic wand 
and recast the budget unfortunately.
$90 for a new FOB for my apartment since my keys got stolen, and $26 for a new ID due to the same thing.
So I am adding $116 to “Stupid Mistakes” category.
I’m also adding $25 to my medical category for flonaze.
Annnnd while I’m recasting, adding $34 to my skating category as I might take one more lesson this month than expected.
That’s all coming out of my “buffer” category. I’m pretty upset that it costs $90 to get a new freaking key for my building, nonrefundable.
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this STINKS! the Stupid Mistakes is a necessary but enraging category :\
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I’m even more upset because it wasn’t even MY mistake, really. Some butthole stole my keys and ID out of my jacket. Also my keys had this adorable money cat keychain a friend got for me:
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Welcome to the forums @ngug - excited to have you here! And rad that you have that budget check in on youtube 
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Week 2 checkin: (these are actually totals for the month to date, not just for week 2)
Groceries: $110.15 remaining.
Eating out: $56.47 remaining.
All other spending: $52.79 remaining.
Is anyone else trying to hoard your spending money until the end of the month and then if you’ve still got any left you’re allowed to buy things you want? I’m feeling that hard today. I feel like I have to conserve all of my money in case some need pops up. I got a 30% off entire purchase coupon from CVS in the mail, and I have a 40% off one item coupon already loaded to my CVS card, which expires today, and I think they stack, so this seems like a good time to get the reading glasses I’ve been meaning to get from there. But I keep thinking, what if I buy them and then, like, can’t buy some other need that crops up later this month because I’m out of money? But if I don’t do that today, then the 40% off expires. I’ll get another at some point, those seem to go out about once a month, but I never get the extra ones in the mail like I just did. Argh. What do? I can still squint for another month, right?
ETA: I bought the readers. Forgot I had Extra Bucks on my card too. Ended up paying $8.16 for them instead of $25, so I think this was a good decision. $44.63 spending money remaining now.
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I was wondering about yoga with the subluxation! I’m glad you got a bunch of good relevant advice. \o/
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