First post! I am excited for this challenge after hearing about it on the podcast because last month was my first month ever making a budget, and I did NOT stick to it and overspent like crazy. I’m looking forward to having some accountability and support to stick to my budget this time around 
My favorite Halloween creature is a tie between talking black cats and friendly ghosts!
My budget is $2,224 for all expenses.
Welcome! Looking forward to hearing about your budget!
Welcome!
So, Thackeray Binx?
Yessss
I’m excited to be here for this challenge!
As I just joined, and October will be my first month of “steady income” coupled with debt another, my main goals are two fold:
track my spending, down to the penny, every week. See where my money is going, what I can improve on, and how to best incorporate an actual budget for next month. I think this tracking will help me to see where my money is being spent, what I need to work on limiting myself on, and how much “extra” money I can throw at my credit card debt.
no using credit cards!! I’ve got to stop. I have successfully avoided using them for three weeks and I want to continue as much as possible for the rest of this month. I don’t anticipate needing to, so fingers crossed! I transferred all my automatic payments from them to my checking account, so that’s a good step in the right direction as well.
I have a question maybe I could get some advice on: for tracking purposes, how do you manage monthly recurring expenses? Do you just add those to Your daily spending for whatever day you actually pay the bill on? Or do you just have it as a monthly expense that you know you’re always going to pay?
Also, some suggestions on how to manage “unexpected spending”? Like, I’m traveling to Portland at the end of the month. I don’t know how much I’m going to spend (on food, transportation, etc). That kind of stuff won’t happen every month so I don’t know the best way to incorporate that info my future budgeting.
Any other tips or advice based on my two goals would be much appreciated.
Oh and my favorite part of October/Autumn?? Baking pumpkin chocolate chip bread and making Apple cider influenced cocktails!
For CCs – I know some folks who remove the numbers from their computers and then freeze the physical cards in a block of ice. Available in a real emergency (you can always use a hair dryer to get it unfrozen!) but not for easy quick purchases.
If I’m travelling, I just add extra to my budget – I don’t have exact numbers, but I have a ballpark usually. I have a general budget template for each month, but it’s not set in stone. I’m also considering setting up some actual separate sinking funds sub-accounts for a few things, because it’s just nice to see the money sitting there sometimes.
I’ve personally never seen value in tracking daily spending. I think if you’re trying to minimize expenses, many days are zero spend. Then on the weekend you get groceries. Once a month you pay rent, internet, Netflix. You never know what day you will need gas, but monthly it tends to average out. So, for tracking I find it most useful to look at monthly values.
I think these are two different questions. Truly unexpected is things breaking, yourself getting sick (requiring doc, meds), a sibling/close friend getting engaged or visiting from out of town, triggering social obligations. For that, having a reserve/buffer is important, either in your cashflow or in savings.
With travel, it’s hard to predict exact values, but you know it’s coming and can estimate. How many meals do you plan to have, at what approximate cost ($5?10?20?)? Do you plan to get around by foot, transit, Lyft/Uber, rental car, limo w/driver, etc? That tells you a cost per ride or for the whole trip.
Why are decent umbrellas so expensive? Mine just shit the bed today. It’s in pieces. Sigh. I’ll have to get a new one after work today as the forecast looks rainy for the next week, so that’s the first hit to my discretionary spending fund - and we’re only 2 days in. Hmph.
I’ve been tracking for a while but I only update once a month. One thing I started doing recently is sort out my categories into fixed recurring, variable recurring, and non-recurring. Fixed recurring is things that stay the same every month, obviously - mortgage, Netflix, etc. Variable recurring is stuff like utilities, groceries, and gas. Non-recurring is everything from spending at Target (which I itemize out to different categories or else it become a big black hole of spending), surprise car repair, clothing, gifts, etc. Having non-recurring expenses kind of separated out was actually really educational for me.
Not sure if any of that would be helpful for your situation, but it might be worth a try?
Did the weekly grocery shop this morning and here’s my totals:
Aldi: $96.60
Wegman’s: 66.03
Total: $162.63
My weekly budget is $150 so technically I’m over for the week, but I suspect I’ll come in under for the month since this grocery order included meat that will feed us for at least 2 weeks. I’m calling it good. I’ve also just started including Aldi in my shopping run and so far it’s coming in a bit cheaper than the same at Wegman’s. I wish they had better quality meats but so far I’m pleased with the organic dairy selections and produce.
Yippee, I found a somewhat battered but still functional umbrella in my closet. I don’t need to buy a new one just yet. 3 days in and still at $0 discretionary spending!
I love Aldi! I don’t eat meat but Boyfriend does and he found the chicken to be… not good. For everything else though it’s good. Their cheese selection is great and cheap. They have some good vegan options and I absolutely love their spinach/arugula salad mix which stays fresh for a long time and doesn’t get slimy. I wish mine sold alcohol though (in Chicago that seems to vary by neighborhood; the farther-away one does have booze). And there are always really basic things that you’d think Aldi would carry but doesn’t - like, why don’t they have tofu? Tofu isn’t exotic any more!
Already had to spend money on two infrequent purchase items, deodorant and toothpaste, because I procrastinated on replacing both (I was using a travel tube of toothpaste, and I was scraping the bottom bits out of the roller of my deodorant for the past 2 weeks).
But still under my $10 budget for household goods, at $7.18 currently.
Electricity came in at 16 cents over budget, but no way to control that 
I have held strong and not eaten out, despite having invites to do so both past nights. One was to celebrate someone’s dissertation proposal at a bar – I just didn’t go, I was tired and knew that willpower wasn’t going to help me. One was with my bestie; she had a live interview at a bookshop with a Big Name Author, which I was there for, and she desperately needed food after. She was very supportive (both of me not ordering and before the interview checking in with me to make sure I’d be okay food-wise for the night).
Tonight is easy: We’re doing our usual taqueria Thursdays at the Taqueria de Wizard y Dia.
Not doing too terribly about sticking to the budget myself, but my husband did stress-buy Jimmy Johns last night for $15.77.
Doing well on food: spent $38.29 on groceries so far, but that includes dinners for this week, all of next week’s breakfasts and lunches, and maybe even lunches after that. AND I resisted buying any junk food while waiting for the flu shot at Target!
I’ll be a little over for health this month (thanks, flu shot!). Health spending so far: $25.15
Household: $21.92. Toilet paper, paper towels (trying to reduce our dependency on these), and multiple soaps.
Of course we have to have stress times on budgetober. Taking home an $18 pizza after two extra hours at work. I’ve warned Greyman that if this persists we’ll be eating literal rice and beans once this damn proposal is done.
My budget is creating great self care. I needed food and we had $15 left in eating out for this week, so I ordered the food I needed. WIN.
Haven’t done too poorly so far! Did forget that I still needed to grab a couple gifts for partner’s birthday next week, so spent $35 at Target on that yesterday - luckily I was able to cover it with the pet sitting cash tips I use as flexible money, so technically didn’t break any budgets! Also spent about $15 in same Target trip on “grocery” items - instant coffee to keep me from WAWA runs at work: vegan cheese, and tater tots.
Also picked up another half shift at work yesterday due to a coworker being sick.
The bad news outside my control is that my dog’s chronic very partial not really bothering him CCL tear has turned into a more severe but still almost certainly partial tear that is actually bothering him. The good news is that I work at a rehab vet and he can get a good amount of care for free, as I haven’t used up much of my free services for the year yet. Cross your fingers he doesn’t end up needing surgery though - it wouldn’t happen until we give conservative treatment a good try (so almost certainly won’t effect this month’s budget), but even with an industry discount and mediocre pet insurance it would hurt.
Starting to get more social obligations on the calendar that I’m going to have to navigate carefully re spending, but I think I can do it!
I forgot my lunch on the counter this morning, which is ironic because I have been awake since 430am, so there was plenty of time to put it into my bag. On the plus side I did remember to move the deodorant so I am ok after my bike ride in.