Chat Budgets and Spending With Us!

I hadn’t planned on posting my full budget but maybe I will just to make people feel better about themselves :sweat_smile:

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Ohhhhhhhhhhh wow. This could be a big factor for us actually! Shoot! The other factor, though, is definitely going to the store too often for things we don’t really need, now that we feel safe doing that. I also feel safe wandering away from fiancé and into the ice cream aisle…

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Yep, that’s the brand I’m trying!

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Ooh what a good idea. I can do that too. I will ignore the exchange rates.

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Weekend check in!
How are ya’ll doing??

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I un-crinkled the receipts out of my purse and did a tally. Here’s where I’m sitting as of today the 12th.

Large expenses still to come:

  • Waiting on what my share of the internet is
  • Waiting on water bill
  • Waiting on bike tune up bill (probably $200)
  • Still might impulse buy a seltzer water maker. :rofl:

I will also be spending a fair bit on BQMS this month, BUT I’m anticipating an additional $400 of income to post for it, so :man_shrugging: YOLO.

ALSO
Reminder to not look at my food spending and Feel Things.
I get lots of free meals and expired but still perfectly fine food from my job at the hippy grocery store and also they give me a 20% off discount. I still spend money on food but it’s a lot of yogurt covered pretzels and instant coffee because We’re Classy.

ALSO ALSO
Re: Food
I do all the grocery shopping for our household, and then split the bill down the middle. All my spending here is just for me.

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Food as of June 12 = 255
35 is takeout (the shadowy one got a Zimbabwean-style hand pie at the farmer’s market today.)

The cashews have been made into curried cashews and most will be distributed tomorrow when we celebrate my dad’s birthday at the park.

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Ponder just spent $550 on groceries. Some of that is nappies. But my estimate was $300 when I gave him the list :flushed: so I’m really looking forward to looking at the receipt for why it’s so much!

ETA: a normal weekly grocery shop for us is anywhere from $150 (just fresh stuff) to $300 (topping up the pantry)

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Are you guys seeing the price spikes we are? Beef is up 20% here, for example. Shipping costs from Asia have nearly tripled. My farmer I get eggs from was saying their chicken feed went up nearly 60% in the last two weeks. :exploding_head:

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Yes. I am thankful we got a bunch of ground beef and froze it at the beginning of the month. I might need to switch from co-op to ALDI meat if it keeps going this direction. Thankful this coincides with more local crop availability and a desire to eat less meat anyway, but yikes.

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Interesting! Thanks for posting about this @Bracken_Joy! I don’t buy much meat and thus didn’t notice. :scream:

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We mostly buy meat and poultry on sale. We’ve noticed many fewer sales, and sales not as good, but that wouldn’t be past month, but just a continuation of the year.

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The other thing to look for I just learned the term yesterday- “shrinkflation”. Package sizes are decreasing while unit price stays the same.

ETA this is especially happening on plastic items like ziplocks, plastic coated disposable plates, etc, and then a lot of food goods. CNBC does some great short pieces on this stuff I like to watch on YouTube.

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Do Not Like.

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The US treasury and most central banks still think this inflation is going to be transient. :crossed_fingers: but in the next few months, budgets on hard mode.

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I don’t buy much meat but I’ll stalk the meat section and stock up (as much as I can with my little freezer) when I see those yellow clearance stickers! otherwise organic meat is just way too much.

Here’s my week two update;

Catagory Spent as of 6/14/21 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 180.94 470.00 289.06
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 10.00 25.00 15.00
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 34.65 50.00 15.35
Total Spend 1,110.46 2,600.00 1,489.54

I ordered some clothes from ThredUp last night (I had zero plan to do this but it happened) came to about $115, so once that charge goes through I’ll be over budget there. Otherwise I’m doing pretty well overall.

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Some of my cards haven’t been syncing right on Mint, so I have no idea what my numbers are actually like :weary: i didn’t notice for over 2 weeks.

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So this is ironic because it’s the OPPOSITE direction of this thread but… has anyone who has tracked to the penny for YEARS (over a decade) ever… just stopped tracking?

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Yes. For me it was really hard to stop. I worried i was messing up data and ruining everything. But once I accepted that risk… Once i realized that the data was not what made me “safe” (in my case, the reality being that i was safe enough not to need to track since I had buffer and knew the broad strokes of my habits and lifestyle expenses already) it was incredibly liberating and felt really good to let it go.

For me, this tracking I’m doing will be temporary. After this i will let it go again and just do my monthly check ins with my accounts and track my NW on that monthly time table.

For me for a long time the penny-level tracking i was doing had shifted from necessary and educational to a need to control and feel safe.

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