You’re doing shit right.
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Everyone warned me that home ownership was expensive and yet…it still surprises me.
Yes! This really resonates. I am ready to stop making monthly mortgage payments to Home Depot.
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Not sure about location/availability, but Home Depot has van & pickup truck rentals for $20/day. Even if that’s just to tide you over until you figure out a longer-term plan!
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We’ve done this a couple times! And we do have am SUV, it’s just imperfectly suited to transporting lots of material.
@Oro if anything I want my budget to consist of MORE glitter sparkle.
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Hello. Reminder because I also need to remind myself. US at least, but pretty sure globally, there’s some crazy inflation stuff happening on consumer goods and groceries and stuff. Hopefully temporary but just like… If you’re having a hard time hitting your numbers, remember that stuff is extra expensive right now and that makes it hard to know exactly what everything will cost.
Love to all.
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Good reminder!
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Reporting in with my budget/spending/tracking (whatever ™ ) so far approx 1 week in. 
There are several “known upcoming $$” expenses, including most of the “fixed expenses” (which for me means “you gotta pay this shit each month, no choice, shave your budget elsewhere” rather than “the amount is fixed”) as well as probably 200$ in getting my bike back to not-shed-neglected condition.
And I may yet splurge on a seltzer water maker. I tried to buy one through my work to get that sweet employee discount (they have a display!!) but no one could figure out if we actually had one for sale 
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Food as of June 7 = 179.98
~$30 of that is takeout, I went for a walk in a park with a friend, and the shadowy one decided to get takeout (at the same place) for dinner
~$15 is cashews from the bulk food store. Cashews are silly expensive and while we like curried cashews, it should probably be more of a special occasion.
~$12 was the indulgent coffee mixer to put in with cashew milk and an ice cube on hot days.
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We love cashews in the HayPug house and spend a small fortune every month!
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So, I finished number crunching for the last few months. Our groceries have settled into an extremely consistent $800/mo for three adults. But now that we’re in “omg seeing other people!!!” mode, restaurants are a thing again.
I really love eating out and also seeing my friends so I think I’m just going to grin and bear the sudden surge in our food expenses…
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Here is my week 1 update. I think it’s going pretty well so far. I’m glad I made my grocery budget more realistic! I think I should be good for groceries for the rest of the week though.
| Catagory | Spent as of 6/7/21 | Budget | Remaining |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mortgage | 442.25 | 475.00 | 32.75 |
| Health/Dental | 226.00 | 226.00 | 0.00 |
| Utilities | 0.00 | 171.00 | 171.00 |
| Groceries | 165.06 | 470.00 | 304.94 |
| Gas/Transporation | 0.00 | 40.00 | 40.00 |
| Car Maintenance, etc | 35.00 | 35.00 | 0.00 |
| Car Insurance | 0.00 | 108.00 | 108.00 |
| Cellphone | 0.00 | 125.00 | 125.00 |
| Pets | 0.00 | 50.00 | 50.00 |
| Dining Out | 4.55 | 125.00 | 120.45 |
| Entertainment | 20.97 | 75.00 | 54.03 |
| Donations | 0.00 | 25.00 | 25.00 |
| Fitness | 0.00 | 15.00 | 15.00 |
| Clothes | 87.75 | 100.00 | 12.25 |
| Household items | 68.35 | 125.00 | 56.65 |
| Travel | 0.00 | 300.00 | 300.00 |
| Gifts | 0.00 | 50.00 | 50.00 |
| Misc | 0.00 | 35.00 | 35.00 |
| Puglet | 0.00 | 50.00 | 50.00 |
| Total Spend | 1,014.93 | 2,600.00 | 1,585.07 |
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Now that we’ve mostly emerged from the newborn fog, and replaced the broken fridge, I want to revisit our spending.
- Jan: $662
- Feb: $1,036
- March: $959
- Apr: $1,247
- May: $1,077
I think it will be stickier to change habits overall, rather than agonizing over each transaction.
- In the absence of some staples, we’ve been doing lots more delivery and unique ingredients. Restock rice, beans, tofu, granola in bulk and see what that does to our meal planning.
- Make iced tea and coffee. I have tons of full leaf tea around, it will be delicious as cold tea.
- Look in the basement pantry and come up with 3 meals.
- Our garden is starting to produce, so eat alll the greens.
Let’s see if this can bring us to <$900 in groceries for monthly average.
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Okay, week 1 check in!
Doing okay so far! (Let’s just go ahead and ignore that $17 under hobbies, eh?) My groceries are high, but I stocked up on coffee, bought a friend a Kringle, and succumbed to months and months of internet advertising for non-alcoholic beer. I miss beer, especially now that it’s summer. I am enjoying kombucha as a replacement, but sometimes it’s just too sweet.
I also broke down and turned on my air conditioning after copious amounts of sweat and sleeping terribly all weekend. We are already having a long hot stretch and it’s only early June. 
Might go a little over budget on the utilities, but that’s okay.
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What did you get? After being pregnant with Puglet I have tried a lot but am always on the look out for more. I think they have come a long way to tasting like “real” beer.
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I also have tried numerous NA beers and have formed Opinions 
Best so far “Session” NA beer but I haven’t found it locally to buy.
Runners up:
Athletics Brewing does dece ones
I actually like Heineken NA beer
There was a really solid one I’m blanking on the name of tho. I might remember later and if so I’ll post.
Best “bang for buck” NA beer has been Busch. It’s not amazing but it’s refreshing and cheap and better still than O’Dules imo.
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I like Athletic brewing upside dawn and Wellbeing heavenly body the best.
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Oh yeah, Wellbeing does good ones, too. 
I still can’t remember the name of the other one tho.
Total spending so far, $1152. I’m just tracking actual expenses, not making budgets/predictions this month. Happy with how things are going so far. We continue to spend $$ on house stuff but I expect that to continue steadily for the next few months because there are so many projects on our wishlist.
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Wait, session has an NA?!? How did I not KNOW THIS!!
Is the one you’re blanking on one of the Clausthaler ones? They’re solid, but not as good as Heineken 0.0
Eta after looking I’m assuming you mean infinite session which sadly is not the Session from Hood River OR I was excited about.
I pulled up this page, looked at a few numbers, and decided to come back to it. Stressful to get back on the budget wagon after falling off! Also, apparently it is expensive to move into a house with years of neglected maintenance when you also have no furniture, who could have known.
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