I just saved myself $50. Booyah.
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Convenience food and cheap takeaway made both my babies. I have many good things to say about using it well.
Related, we went to a fancy supermarket in an expensive suburb nearby and are now planning a reconnaissance trip to thoroughly review the food available. They do pre-made salads and meals of very decent quality, and also muffins that I will eat on sad days, which is important if I’m otherwise disinterested in food.
I would also like to investigate more food delivery options for groceries that are not our major supermarkets, for the weeks when we have energy to prep our own food.
OH and I’m also planning on selling our bar freezer and buying one at least twice the size. Chest Freezers are great but I will actually use an upright one with drawers/ shelves. That could save us a lot of energy and money because I can keep a lot more convenience foods on hand
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Yes,! Those big freezers save a lot. My current grocery routine is every other week a huge produce delivery from mama earth organics. If I have energy there is a two day period to customize it. Huge online shopping from Walmart for boring things as needed. In between husboo can get essentials if we run out (fruit, milk eggs) with little input from me, and if I have energy we can do the fun shops.
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Your grocery routine sounds delightful and I enjoyed reading it!
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Ooo, my dream is to have another freezer! I would batch cook for like a month or two and fill that sucker up with so many easy-to-grab things.
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I thought this was a fun little slice of life, I like her other videos too (most aren’t just money-focused).
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I keep trying to convince Husband that getting an upright freezer would be a big improvement for us, but he’s not on board. I might try again during the sales next month.
I dream of being able to stock up when things go on crazy sale and having room for lots of convenience food for when I’m not well.
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I just checked my September numbers and I successfully came in $263 under budget for (luxury spending + basic life stuff). 
Doing the thing where I have a tab in my spreadsheet with a rolling “this is how much $ left per day you have, once you pay for anticipated not-yet-tracked expenses” has been really helpful. Good for my impulse control.
I have a couple of big purchases I want to make - I’m especially yearning for a new mattress - so I guess the September excess will go towards that. IDK when the usual biggest mattress sales are, but maybe I should time it to that?
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Oh I would like to know when mattress sales are as well!
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This was great too, just discovered she did a budget video but I’ve been watching her for a long time! Really peaceful home and food content typically.
And here’s another YouTube I like a lot (I think I linked her earlier in the thread, she does wonderful food and daily culture stuff) but here’s a specific money video!
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After some research…apparently typical discounts are 10-20%; biggest savings are in march thru may; biggest holiday sales are therefore often memorial day but other holidays (black friday/cyber monday, labor day, etc) are often nearly as good.
I might keep an eye out for cyber monday, then.
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$123 on restaurants & coffee in Sept. $12 was because I hadn’t planned well, but I’m happy about the rest, and I’m not going to get down on myself for that little.
$525 on groceries
(I stopped breaking out specialty from grocery, so the core lines are green (total) and red (restaurants). July is when the city opened up some regs and I was double vaccinated, so that shows me meeting with friends on patios)
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I did super well at packing us meals for the plane ride to the wedding but once our flight home was delayed the second time I gave up and got a beer and a dumb airport pizza. Sigh. Win some, lose some
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I need some accountability around making a phone call that I am dreading, to cancel my Tribune subscription. They just nearly doubled the rate, I’m not paying $27/month for that! (Was paying $15.)
I am dreading this because I hate getting a hard sell and I know I am going to get one and I am bad at standing up for myself. This can only be done by phone, there is no online, email, chat, snail mail option.
Suggestions for language to use when they are trying hard to convince me to keep it, so that I don’t cave? Other than just repeating “no thank you, please cancel my subscription” like a broken record?
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Tell them you’re moving and will be subscribing to your local paper in NOLA. (I fully endorse convenient lies when dealing with customer service things.)
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Do you want the subscription if they would lower the cost? Or want to cancel no matter what? If the latter I think you’re broken record approach is perfect!
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it helps me to write down what im going to say. so if you want to tell them youre moving, or that the price increase is too high, or even if you just wanna let “im calling to cancel” be the complete message, write it down and you can refer back to it if you get flustered.
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Just know that usually telemarketing associates have a script too and they are not actually personally invested. When I did telemarketing we had to ask three times for each sale, so even if the person clearly said no twice, and even told us they were on government assistance or bankrupt, we still had to do one more push and get that third no and switch to the next call. I would just repeat the same exact sentence like you wrote, over and over until they cancel it for you.
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“Regardless” and “be that as it may”. It just side steps actually answering any of their tactics, instead of forcing you to play the game. Let them yammer, then just do a simple “regardless, I am going to cancel”. You don’t need to justify anything to them. “May I ask you why you’re cancelling?” “No, I would prefer not to discuss it. Just cancel my subscription”.
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May I also note that my dad used this on us as teens constantly 
it’s maddeningly effective.
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