In.
Pretty much haven’t budgeted since I retired, just gone with the flow and while we’ve never run out of cash, there’s been moment where we’ve had “WTF did all our cash go?” moments.
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I’M IN
We have definitely overspent the “pet” category this month due to unexpected adoption of a kitten. The only remaining expenses, however, should be another cat tree, a vet visit (yikes, not sure on the costs of that), and possibly a refill of litter. Then again, I don’t know how fast two cats will go through the dry food…
My favorite Halloween-themed creature is my cat. She’s especially Halloween-themed now that she’s angry about the kitten.
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Gah I want to do this. 9 day vacation coming up though. Hmm. I already know what the lodging cost will be, I can estimate the gas. But… Food/beer. I guess I can look at other vacations to that area over the past 4-5 years and run the numbers, see what the median daily spending is, figure out the outliers and why those happened. Maybe.
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I will probably not join in (I’m pretty sure adding more tracking/concern/control right now is gonna be bad for my mental health) but will smile along.
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I forgot about the favorite Halloween character! And now I’ve fallen down an internet rabbit hole of cat Halloween costumes. I’m tossing up between a spider or a lobster. 
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I also forgot about the favorite Halloween character. Mine is cute bats and spiders. There’s a Little Free Library at the end of my street and I wanted to turn it into a kid-friendly haunted library with Halloween themed stickers and temporary tattoos, but I think I’ll save that for next year since we’ve been trying to control our spending after buying a house earlier this year.
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This sounds fun, I’m in! I’d like to do grocery-budget only, I’m thinking $200 for the month
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I have been informed on NO UNCERTAIN terms by @aaronpk that I am not allowed to get a spider costume for Kitten, even though I think it’s cute. He thinks it’s terrifying.
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Well I love Halloween themed stickers so I’m in. Let’s see if I can beat my own personal demon, eating out.
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So excited about this! I just joined the forum because I got a new job, my student loan Payments are about to start coming due in November and I’ve got a lot of credit card debt that constantly stresses me out. I tried YNAB but kind of fell off the wagon because the month of September was a very weird money month for me (I got married and had tons of expenses that were associated with the wedding and lead up to it that I just got overwhelmed with and failed to organize and keep up with). Maybe I can reach out to YNAB and ask for a redo or extension on my free trial.
Anyway: I’m excited to be here and this budget challenge will be a huge help for me this coming month as I try to really nail my finances down. Budgeting has always been a really tough thing for me.
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Oh I forgot my Halloween thing too. Mine is my oldest niece as a 1 year old dressing up in an amazing lemur costume. It was so random and cute and I think of it every Halloween.
Which reminds me, I need to figure out if we are doing anything for the holiday this year and if so, Bobbin obviously needs the cutest costume ever!
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Yes hello this is me. I am so very, very in. My goal is to not eat out during October. This is a HUGE challenge for me – I usually eat out twice a week or more – so I’ll have to Get My Game On. There is a less-than-zero chance that I fail, but I have buy-in from my partner and my bestie (my two usual restaurant-partners-in-crime), so that will help a lot.
Not gonna lie at all, a forum badge is like… intensely useful motivation. I don’t usually do well with rewards, but apparently internet pixels are what works for me.
My favorite Halloween creature is, of course, black cats. Tbh though pretty much everything Halloween is my vibe.
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Set AND stick to? 
No this is great. I have a hard time sticking to the actual tracking of spending, like I’ll go for a week or two and it’ll be great but it periodically falls apart. And when I’m actually tracking what I’m spending, just, like, looking at it and logging it, I end up spending less. So I’m hoping this’ll help me save a little more this month without undue pain. Also I very much want that sticker.
My favorite Halloween-themed object… it’s basic but I love pumpkins. Possibly the cutest vegetable.
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Especially the tiny little white ones! SO CUTE!
You have the best halloween cat I’ve met.
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Woohoo! Halloween and budgets right when I really need to work on my budget!
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I am so in. This past month was my first time making a budget for us as a married couple vs. just me and we also moved to a very different place. In October we are hopefully going to be getting more income and move out of my parents’ house. I was wildly wrong about some of my predictions for September: I thought we would spend very little eating out (nope, turns out I will spend money on food anywhere), little on groceries (see previous), and nothing much in other categories (I have been stressed and stress buying things for charities like books for prisoners and groceries for the food pantry – I know it’s good but we don’t have reliable incomes right now). I need to refocus our budget and also practice some deprivation.
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Will is responsible is for the over-the-top audio cart for budgetober on the new podcast 
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Good timing, I’m excited to get going! I just started listening to Oh My Dollar and also recently began budgeting with YNAB – I like it, but still getting the hang of things, so this’ll be good practice
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