@glfdtz43 sometimes I find myself “doing” better on challenges like this when I’m doing it invisibly 
Good to have you along for the ride!
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Yay for Fun and yay for dates! My rental car this weekend has PA license plates and I find myself saying, “hello, rdaneel0!” every time I go to the car. Yes I realize this is super weird but if there were an alternative universe where the simple fact this car was licensed in PA meant you’d somehow see a cheery wave every 8 hours or so, it would totally make sense 
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Week 4: 154.40
4.97 Asian grocery store chain
9.00 meat from discount app
16.84 premium grocery
34.25 discount grocery 2
21.99 kekap manis from the market because the Asian grocery chain didn’t have it (super weird)
10.29 discount grocery 2 Halloween candy
0.00 pumpkin from local butcher giveaway in partnership with local bank and local real estate person
24.00 dinner with friend who is a former colleague
26.67 dinner with friend who is also a weird money person™
4.04 tea with friend who is also a weird money person™
2.35 lemon twist pastry from one of the many local brunch places
Which brings us to 444.24 for the month to date.
Additional money will be spent this week to restock Coke Zero for the Shadowy One. My estimate is $8.
ETA: coke zero was 9.04
Monday industry night thing was 16
So 469.28
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WEEK 4 CHECK-IN
October has too many weeks in it.
Activity since last week (cumulative totals):
Food: 717/800
Transit: 174/300
Coffee: 58/75
Health/home: 393/400 - hope I don’t run out of toilet paper in the next five days lol
Not a lot of activity this week, been laid out with a cold and/or work stress. Still having a real hard time with ordering delivery instead of eating the food in my fridge - this week, it was mostly due to nausea. I have enough food in the fridge/freezer that I don’t HAVE to spend any more on food this month. Let’s see if I can be disciplined enough to make that happen.
So, five days left in the month, including two social activities that will probably add ~$30 in transit, another $10-$30 in the “social” bucket for food/drink at said events. Assuming I don’t go impulse shopping between now and then, the month should end up in a really good place, and I’ll be able to save a couple hundred over my goal.
Now to figure out my November budget, which includes Thanksgiving… in Vegas… (I have interesting parents)
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Failure: I exercised 5x. Injury and pain are confounding factors. This is really good, still.
Success: everything else. In fact, there were two additional appointments that were extremely valuable this past week. Better than success.
Like I said before, this challenge gave me the change to find the best high-value spends that improve my life. I know where to put my money, going forward.
Also every time I went to eat food from outside my home I stopped and asked myself if this was worth being one of my three times eating out/ getting take out for the month. Sometimes the answer was yes, and often the answer was no. It was a valuable exercise and I plan to continue to have a flexible cap on eating out.
For me the challenge is finished, and was a win. The month isn’t over but my one health/ lifestyle spend (therapy) is already planned. Budgetober is a win for me.
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Previously…
This week: cakemaking and back to work.
Groceries: $300.44 / $300 - went slightly over because of mandatory Halloween candy purchases. I think I’ll be good for the rest of this week, though!
Home goods/miscellaneous: $79.94 / $80 Bought a wall mounted coat rack for our entry that’s been on the list for MONTHS. Super glad I finally got it and we can get into the habit of using it before (hopefully) the rains start again.
Utilities: $315.63 / $320
Internet:$49 / $50
Alcohol: $45.95 / $30 Bought a bottle of brandy for cakemaking and mulled wine.
My fun money: $5 / $25 (I guess this extra money can go towards the alcohol category)
Hotel + food: $276.47 / $300
Airport parking (original category for car rental): $48 / $250
Wedding gift: $46.97 / $100
Additional wedding expenses $91.64 / $0
Pet expenses: $$211.98 / $200
This week was a low spend month, apart from getting cake supplies for mr krmit’s birthday cake. Back to a regular schedule after wedding week.
Successes: keeping wedding travel costs down! Although expecting a car rental and cancelling it certainly helped make it look good.
I also found it extremely helpful to PLAN to buy the coat rack this month. Having that money specifically earmarked to that particular purchase helped push me to actually do it, and it was something I’ve wanted to get for months. Turns out planning ahead makes things happen.
I learned that I keep putting $250/month as my grocery budget goal, and $300 is just more realistic. That $50 extra isn’t making or breaking the budget and good food is a value I don’t want to compromise.
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Checking in for the week–lunch for the next week is in the slow cooker and I just got the last of what I needed for the craft shows so no more shopping today. Hopefully no more shopping for the next couple days and these numbers will match at the final check-in.
Home improvement: $199/$300–Plumbing done, and less than expected which is good because a couple other categories came in a little high. Also a couple other minor projects finished before the latest snow with parts on hand.
Bills: $60/$60–Done for the month
Auto: $61/$40–Done for the month and over budget, but I’m declaring this one a don’t-care since a friend needed an unexpected ride to the airport to go deal with some family stuff and that took about a third of the tank.
Food: $247/$250–Done for the month (I think/hope)
Sports/Health/Hobbies: $34/$25–Done for the month and over, and I do care on this one…display crates were more expensive than I expected, but I somehow missed that I had a show in a week (and it’s snowing) which left me no time/place left to build what I wanted. Not great organization on my part.
Travel: $0/$0–Still good.
Cat: $398/$400–Done for the month
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Waving my magic wand to increase the gas budget (we did have to get gas a third time) and the pet budget (I finally made a vet appointment for the kitties)…
Utilities - 355.67 – paid & under budget
Food - 761.90 – as of today we have exactly $40 left in the budget, and I’ll pick up a few more things on Tuesday; looks like I budgeted very well for this somewhat spendy month!
Transportation (gas for car) - 58.04 – this seems to have been a really spendy month for gas! Have gas prices gone up? We went to Renn Fest once and Philly once, I think? That’s not a huge amount of driving.
Household - 30.99 – moved some to the wiggler’s category; we might need tissues but there is plenty left
The wiggler - 7 – trying out a bigger size of disposable diapers
Car insurance - 450 – paid
Pet - 400 – under budget for now–we’ll see how the vet visit goes tomorrow
Family Fun & Festivals - 60.96 — stayed within budget and Renn Fest season is over
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Food: 298.74 / 400
Health: 3974.6 / 4500 (This will partly be paid for via a sinking fund I have and a small amount carried into next month’s sinking fund but I wanted to see how much it ended up being this month. One more appt, expected $90 more)
Personal: 134.3 / 120 Oops, although this is ok, I can reallocate from a sinking fund to cover this. Won’t have any more spend in this category until the end of the month.
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Check in:
Food ($700 budgeted)
- $526 groceries
- $218 going out
**$44 over
Home Improvement ($3500 budgeted)
$18.64 Home depot.
$465 compost
Gas ($40 budgeted)
$70 used
$30 over
Utilities ($160 budgeted)
All spent fully paid
Coffee ($60 budgeted)
$58 spent.
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. This might be coming next month, not this month?
Gifts ($50 budgeted)
$20 spent.
Flex ($100 budgeted)
$20.24 spent from gas spending overflow.
$30 - nerf blasters
$50 fish stuff
Over .24
This week I’m not allowed to spend anything…
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Assuming your car is registered in state, you can look at the sticker on the license plate and see what month it expires. Bill typically show up the month before to allow processing time, etc. One year mine didn’t show up. Turns out my driver’s license had expired on my birthday a few months before, unbeknownst to me. I guess they are linked and they concluded I was no longer driving and didn’t need to register the car. I think you can also look this up online and pay online for a fee.
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Week 4 update for categories I spent money in this week (all totals are cumulative) I’ll do a final update with every category at the end of October:
- Groceries/Household Supplies: $457.54/$460 ($4.46 left; I’m calling this done for October since the next time I get groceries/household items will be Nov 2 or 3)
- Gas: $183/$240 ($57 left)
- Medicine: $84/$40 (Mom’s medicine was doubled and I forgot about Dad’s)
- Out-to-eat: $247.57/$240 (I forgot about the mountain trip dammit so I didn’t budget anything for food on the trip)
- Misc: $16.24 (I didn’t even have a misc cat on this thing)
Thank God payday is this week. Probably spend another $40-50 on gas, around $140 on groceries, and some credit card, car, and student loan payments.
Going out to eat (when we’re not on a trip) is getting easier to turn down. Although I’m not gonna lie, Bro paying for going out to eat two or so times a week is helping to curb my impulses because I’m happy I got to go out twice so don’t feel the need to go out anymore. I just pay once and that’s it, so that’s helped me out a lot.
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Yeah, I looked and it’s registration is in November. So I kind of expected it to be here by now. The grace period goes through the end of the month after though so I should be fine either way.
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Week 4 update:
Rent + Utilities = $747/$750 (should be complete)
Consumer debt = $1033 /$800 (more is better!)
Fitness $0/$50 (under is fine - I worked out a lot I just didn’t pay for yoga classes. Might go to one later in the week, but I did yoga twice this month and that’s fine (both were free)).
Food $170/$175
Other $173/$175
Transportation $73/$100 (gas, oil change, adding $ to transit pass)
IRA $100/$100
Savings $130 /$100 (over is better here)
Planning not to spend much for the rest of the month. Earned more than usual in pet sitting so was able to put a bit more than usual toward debt as well as stock both my checking and savings accounts enough so hopefully I can be safe from maintenance fees next month!
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Groceries$260: Now at $202.78. I still need to get some more groceries tonight but should be able to keep that within budget.
Clothes $35: I spent $28.77 on sweaters and a pajama set from thrift stores. My husband was supposed to buy himself some boxers but he keeps not doing it so 
Date money: Still at $24.86. I’m not sure if we’ll have another date this month—we’ve been doing so many projects and wearing ourselves out that I think we’re too tired to go out.
Miscellaneous $80: $16.93. I picked up a few odds and ends at the thrift store. One perk of doing so many house projects is we don’t have time for miscellaneous spending.
- Plants $20: Still at $22.25.
- Biggest challenge this week: We should buy and cook foods that involve fresh produce but we used up all our energy hosting guests and working on house projects.
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Week 4 total for groceries: $271.01 out of $400.
Honestly I think we are doing so good this month because I’ve been really busy and not done our big grocery shop on Sunday two times now lol.
But we’ve successfully avoided processed junk and ‘new’ stuff. We did buy two frozen burritos this because we were feeling well early in the week.
Going out total: $19 out of $50. Still the same from week 2. Didn’t spend any money on it this week.
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WEEK4 RESULT
Restaurants GeekyGirl: €21.10 – Tue & Wed Lunch & Sat breakfast. Mon, Thur & Fri off
Restaurants family: €37.30 – Jap. take-out on Fri evening and lunch at amusement center
Family Groceries: €0 -– Yay!!
Uber GeekyGirl: €0€12.96 – Took a taxi from the library on Saturday
Uber family: €0 – We took the bus to the park and walked to the amusement park
Personal Spending: €174.1 --78 for new glasses, 75 for OBGYN & restaurants
TOTAL OCTOBRE
Restaurants GeekyGirl: €153.99/200
Restaurants family: 37.30€/100
Family Groceries: €229.07/250
Uber GeekyGirl: €30.96/50
Uber family: €23.66/80
Personal Spending: €577.85/600
Except for the Japanese takeout on Friday, I think this week’ spending was okay. I was tired and cranky Friday evening and MrGeek was late in the office; I didn’t have the energy to take care of 3 kids and cook dinner. I mean I love my kids and I like spending time with them but after two full days with them and almost 12 hours straight with no adult around, I was just about done. So it was takeout, brush the teeth and go to bed. They didn’t like it and they weren’t even being picky, it didn’t taste good. I need to do more food prep on the weekends when MrGeek is there so that we don’t have to spend money to eat so badly.
I went to the library on Saturday morning and had €5 breakfast (it had to be €5 to use credit card). I could have had breakfast at home or at a cheaper place but I just wanted to eat and go have some ‘me’ time. I had to go early as MrGeek go the library in the afternoons to study.
For the health expenses, normally everything will be reimbursed but I have to send forms and mails before so I’ll count it as expenses for now.
I did manage to avoid Uber I took a Uber from teh library on Sat and was almost reasonable in my restaurants spending. Now I just need to avoid a shopping spree these 4 days and we’ll be fine. Hopefully MrGeek won’t pass by the grocery store and buy us tons of food we don’t need.
This challenge has been eyes opening. While being mindful about it, I give myself permission to spend money for convenience food and transportation. I can limit it in some areas but I think that is the best I can now while working FT with 2.5 kids and an unequal division of labor with MrGeek (whose job doesn’t allow flexible hours on top of it).
No-Stress November has a nice ring to it. I like tracking but I don’t like ‘losing’ so it’s the perfect combination.
ETA: edited to add lunch for the kids at the amusement center €11 and a charge of €12.96 for a Uber from the library (I took the bus+train to go).
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Groceries: $312 / $275 stretch, $325 more realistic.
Gas: $49 / $55
Eating Out / Entertainment: $40 / $75
Household: $33/ $75
Supplements: $59 / $60
Cat: $21 / $60
Therapy: $ 450 / $300
Massage: $69 / $120
Lawn & Garden: $35 / $40
Blinds: $0 / $300
Bus pass: $0 / $20
Gas & Electric: $-1 / $5 (saver’s switch credit drops this month, yay… and THEY owe ME money)
Professional Registration: $94 / $0
Clothing $32 / $0
Yoga Teaching: $2 / $0
Bicycling $11 / $0 Hmm somehow have dropped this category from this listing…
I’m going to go over on grocery spending for the month. I may not get to the blinds or other home projects I originally listed. I’m OK with that. I updated my avatar to picture of flowers from a hike a while back.
This has been a huge success for me, both to get on top of my money AND time management. I wrote in detail about some of the other ‘wins’ in the post below:
https://forum.ohmydollar.com/t/from-just-riding-along-to-finding-my-way/954/301
If I have additional expenses today, I will report them on Thursday or Friday to capture the full month.
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Hello, my name is Panda, and I’m here to make everyone else feel better about their spending lol.
Week 4 Recap! (Gulp. Cumulative)
- Food: $426.49/$275. Whelp, looks like I’ve got some work to do here next month…I’m still overbuying groceries dammit. I’m definitely done buying all food for the rest of the month at least.
- Phone: $31.59/$30. No change.
- Transportation: $52.55/$60. Oh look, one category I didn’t exceed!!
- Gym/Health: $35.14/$35.14. No change.
- Clothes/Personal care: $239.45/$75. Yup, you read that right. My everyday winter boots suddenly shit the bed, so I needed to buy a replacement on short notice. And I have impossibly wide feet (like, my hiking boots are men’s wide), so of course it’s not cheap.
- Household: $97.04/91.55. No change.
- Misc: $52.05/$48.11. No change.
Monthly total to date: $934.31/$614.80. BRB gonna go hide now
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