Seconded
1 Like
Super grateful for this challenge. It’s really helped us reign in the spending and we honestly have not felt deprived.
Especially grateful because our bank decided to take our car payment twice and it’s going to take an unknown number of days to get the funds back and I’m not stressing as much as I would have since expenses have been lower.
7 Likes
What @Ckni27 said! I’d love to continue doing some kind of budget thread next month. Something about posting the numbers has made me ultra vigilante. It also gave me the push to finally look into my husband’s credit card rewards (I manage all the finances but never looked into what points he’s accrued) and it turns out we’d gotten all the way up to $381 cash back, so I cashed that in for savings which puts me way over my $600 savings goal and into $981 just for October (net, post tax)! So yeah! I’m a fan 
9 Likes
While others are exuberant about saving money I’m over here like “well at least I know my estimates are totally fucking off.”
8 Likes
Hey, me too! Also realizing that my income doesn’t support my expenses unless I don’t save… so, y’know, that’s cheery especially since my job is suddenly unstable. You’re not alone.
Awareness is the first step though, right?
4 Likes
My challenge was about doing all the self care things and seeing what is worth it. Massage and regular physio are not, turns out. House cleaning and therapy and hand physio are. I can’t do all the things but now I know where the highest value stuff is.
10 Likes
Picked up some odds and ends at Whole Foods. $70.14 remaining in grocery budget.
2 Likes
LOL. Me too.
So good to hear this was useful for you! That sounds like a really good thing to figure out . I’d like to try something like this since I’m shitty at spending money on Actually Effective Self-Care.
3 Likes
In my household it’s just me who drink coffee so we just have a little aeropress usually, and then when we have guests I get the French press
2 Likes
Week 4:
Did the final grocery shop today and it worked out that due to my travel and H’s residency schedule we planned meals up to 10/31.
Aldi: $41.91
Wegman’s: $94.31 -this includes a giant bag of dog food ($20) since we had to test out the new brand with the small bag first.
Total: $136.22
Monthly Total: $592.75/$600
I’ll probably update this because we will probably go to the farm place and buy milk when we run out, but that will put us right at $600. Pretty happy with this!
6 Likes
Did a big grocery shop - $6.85 remaining in grocery budget. I need to pick up 1 thing that Aldi didn’t have which will be $2-something, I think. I don’t need anything else before the 1st. We are WELL stocked. So I’m going to make it! Hooray!
(I decided that booze drunk at home DOES count as a grocery - at least, beer and wine does; I think our annual holiday chocolate martini ingredients purchase*, for example,probably should not, so that spend includes a bottle of wine.)
- 1 bottle white Godiva, 1 bottle dark chocolate Godiva, 1 bottle vanilla vodka. This all costs like $80 total, which is half of my grocery budget right there, but it keeps us in tasty drinks for pretty much the entire winter!
4 Likes
So… I realized I’m over my food budget and my flex budget doesn’t cover it and I’ve recasted already… Do I lose?
4 Likes
Right there with you…so if we lose, we lose together at least 
4 Likes
And we know we lost rather than our former blissful ignorance about losing.
4 Likes
I personally choose to think of this outcome as winning in learning about your habits - your actual needs versus what you imagined your spend usually is; your mindless spending if that happens for you; your emotional spending triggers; any or all of it… It’s all a win if you learned something about you and your relationship with money.
ETA but that’s also probably a good reason I’m not the badge giver 
7 Likes
Week 3 update for me - my laptop screen is dead again so I don’t know my actual numbers, but I do know I haven’t spent anything outside my parameters based on my checking account.
1 Like
As predicted…accio money! Is that how this wand waving works?
Cash withdrawn will remain consistent. BUT I’m charging a pile of pet expenses, and a ride to the maternity store is coinciding with my bathing suit not fitting. And if the ride goes to a stocking up store near the mat store, that will be charged too
5 Likes
Though I wasn’t officially playing, I have been following along. It really motivated me to stick to my budget this month as well. With variable income, I was finally able to find my budgeting sweet spot and matched my inflow to it.
Thank you everyone for working so hard at your individual goals as you’re transparency has kept me accountable. Next time I’ll post from the beginning!
4 Likes
Finished my last grocery shop for the month ($54) so I came in under my goal of $300, which for me means an extra $55 rolls over to next month!
Total spending for the month so far:
A little bit added to shopping because my husband bought a medicine ball and I bought some cute thrift store decor totally worth it! Also added some to dates since we went out to lunch today. I’ll be spending a bit more in Fun this week and tomorrow we’re going out so we’ll have a bit more under date, most likely but we have plenty of breathing room since I heavily pad everything (I allot a whopping $230 for dates).
3 Likes
Reporting in a little early, but I’m calling it a win. Just scheduled monthly credit card payoff for October , clocking in at $1840 and change. Will have a $70 grocery pickup to add in the next few days which the bill comes in (it’s on another card to keep that card active), but that’s it for the month.
4 Likes