If spending summaries are not your thing, here is notice to scroll on by and my feelings will not be hurt. This is more an exercise for myself and I'm inviting anyone that might be interested to peek in. This log goes Friday, August 21 to Thursday, August 27. As a reminder, this is our variable expenses that we might be able to control better or differently. It does not include long term retirement accounts, gifts or spending we might do to help family, charitable contributions, or our daughters college costs as these are fixed or a unique to us priority, and not useful to share with others. My daughters spending is on her own as well, though I am trying to track DH's receipts.
August 21-August 27, 2020
Friday: DH met his friend for an outdoor lunch. They never worry about who pays, and DH did this time $30. Total: Meals Out $30
Saturday: I wouldn't have needed gas, but after two round trips to the lake last weekend, I was well under half a tank-actually surprised over 11 gallons fit, but gas was at $1.88 gallon, so I figured I should top off. We needed bread milk etc., so a stop at Kwik Trip was $16.62 which included a pound of Sloppy Joe meat to try as we have been happy with the ready made tack meat. A whole lot of stuff st the Dollar Tree, som for my daughter, some for the car ride, some for the house, that we will just throw all in the H&G category for simplicity, at $26.79. This included three space bags to save room in the truck with all her bedding and towels. I returned two pairs of skinny jeans to Kohls, bought at an unbelievable clearance price, plus layered with discounts, and had $17.96 credited back to my card. I guessed that she would be the same size, but as brand new, and she is a bit curvier than her last jeans purchase, they didn't quite work.The style I had bought her were no longer available (I had got on clearance after all) Unfortunately I lost $10 in Kohls cash value, but still had $25 available through the purchases for DH a few weeks ago, and rewards points. I applied what I had to a different pair of jeans, and socks, though still had $7.19 out of pocket., so I think this still end sup being a -$10.77 purchase. Ad she still had two pairs that fit well, she can get by with three pairs, with the other clothes she has. Total: H&G $43.41 Care Expense $21.06 Clothing: -$10.77
Sunday: No Spend Day Total: $0
Monday: DH borrowed a truck and needed to top it off so $20 went for gas. We bought Jimmy John sandwiches for $24.09. We had forgotten Command strips and our daughter needed more vitamins so as she was doing some orting we ran tot Walgreens and bought both for $34.89 more. Total:Take out $24.09 Miscellaneous $34.89 and Car expense $20
Tuesday: DH filled the car when he returned at $41.40. The first $20 was stupid as he was supposed to have gotten a filled truck, but he wanted to start with a full tank, and leave a full tank for the next person. Fortunately his store let him borrow the truck, so no cost to our own vehicles. Our daughter let us know the Christmas CD's were released early (usually previous year released for the big concert), and if ordered yesterday, were 10% cheaper, so we ordered two at a total of $31. Her bed did not have a flexible frame to make it higher, so she decided risers would be needed. I used my account to order bed risers for the extra storage at $16.49. I figure we will use them at home at some point, so will cover that cost. Lot's of miscellaneous spending this week! Total: Car expense $41.40, Miscellaneous $47.49
Wednesday: No spend day. Thank goodness because wit until you see Thursday!. Total: $0
Thursday: DH discovered a leak in a pipe leading to the outside spigot. This involved a plumber having to crawl through a basement closet that leads to a crawl space. $700 later, we have the leak, and a few pin holes fixed, plus a new spigot outside that needed replacing as well. As this is not home improvement, but the stuff of life, I am tracking this here. DH was flustered, didn't want to bother with lunch so he ran for Arby's for both of us, spending $12.89. But I had already gone to my daughters to work, and stopped and got provisions,and spent $8. I stopped on my way home for ice cream because, yes, ice cream, grapes, and pumpkin. Pup has been having tummy issues again, so will give him a little pumpkin with his food. $13.29 Total: Take out $12.89, H&G: $21.29 and Home Repair/Maintenance $700
Total Spent for the week:
Take Out/Meals out: $66.98
H&G: $64.07
Clothing: $-10.47
Car Expense: $61.40
Entertainment: $0
Miscellaneous: $82.38
Medical co-payments and deductibles: $0
Home Maintenance: $700
Total: $902.96
I've done four weeks of tracking and sharing. I will continue to track for myself, or review weekly, but this will be the last of my shared posts on a spending log. It pointed out where I spend a lot and what things have derailed good intentions to not spend unnecessarily. I have a post coming on spending, having enough, when does it make sense to spend-all personal to my circumstance. if you liked this kind of glimpse in someone else's spending life, I'm glad For those bored with this type of post, it's over!
Friday, August 28, 2020
10 comments:
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Wow that was an expensive week! Makes me glad my son's a plumber looking at those prices. I hope things calm down for you now though!
ReplyDeleteI know-a plumber i the family would be a great help. We still would have bought a new water heater, but the leak, was a blow. We have lived her for 30 years and thing do just go kerplunk.
DeleteIt seems you did well until the plumbing!
ReplyDeleteDid I though? I m surprise I spend as much as I do since I only leave the house 1-2 times a week other than walks or the bike.
DeleteA couple of no spend days, that's great. Sorry about the plumbing. I don't like it when a wrench gets thrown in my plans.
ReplyDeleteA literal wrench this time. We all seem to get these curves that make us remember why we are trying to b thrifty when we can.
DeleteI'll play even though it was a pretty boring week around here especially compared to yours. LOL
ReplyDeleteSunday - No spend! $0
Monday - No spend! $0
Tuesday - Ouch! Total $73.77
$41.06 - Aldi
I did well on a couple of in store goodies like yellow rice for 95 cents/box - cheaper than WM
Two pork loin roasts that went into the freezer destined for future crock potting of pulled pork and an Asian recipe I saw on Youtube
Large package of ground sirloin - normally it's a higher grade than I would typically buy but it had an instant $3 off sticker as it was two days out of sale date. I made individual hamburger patties for the freezer bin so we're stocked up again and I was able to put all of the packaging in the trash at once, avoiding our well meaning but chatty neighbor ~ it's hot, I'm barefoot and you don't have a mask on
The "usuals" - buns, milk and a dozen eggs because they're 88 cents at that Aldi as opposed to our closer one at $1.29 (I have no idea why....)
And a splurge of a bag of large pears that hopefully won't ripen all at once. Stayed away from the peaches because of the widening recalls
$22.39 - Walmart
Dog food, distilled water and machine oil for the better half's hair clippers. Frugality in taking care of equipment! I've lost track of how much that pair of clippers has saved us in his hair cuts over the years not to mention it's easy to do on a Sunday night instead of trying to schedule an appointment in his "free time". Plus he was the only one in the office that was groomed during the area's lock down - haha!
$0.81 - Walgreens
Dog's prescription (thank you insurance!!!)
$9.51 - Dollar store
Parchment baking paper (french fries cook so much more evenly on this!), canned condensed cream soup for next week's crock pot recipe - cheaper than generic at Walmart and Aldi was out, crackers and rice cakes for calorie free meal padding
Wednesday - No spend $0
Thursday - No spend $0
Friday - No spend $0
Future budgeting considerations:
I have no idea how things will play out this year but usually Labor Day sales yield decent discounts on steaks. I buy enough for our holidays in the rest of the year when meat prices typically go up for winter if you're buying non-traditional for the month i.e. not turkey in November. Our anniversary is in December and I don't expect it will be a restaurant meal this year so will add that to the list if the meat isn't limited in purchase quantities. Thanks, Covid. You just keep teaching me what I took for granted. Three containers of chicken broth? No, bad Shannon! The limit is 2!
I'd like to purchase a roll of stamps (100?) as we'll need six for all of our/inlaw's/family ballots. Plus, we live in a very young neighborhood and I know several people who will not bother to vote if they have to go out of their way to buy a stamp to mail it. Regardless of your political affiliations, voting should be an open opportunity and if I can make the offer to stop by for a stamp (we're very close to the community mailbox drop box), I feel like that will do more than any campaigning or calling. It just depends on if we'll be able to take that debt on next month.
Christmas gift giving. I've wrestled with this one and as several families in our circle are struggling, I'm going to suggest a reflection holiday season. No gifts which will cut down on postage/trips to the PO, reduce the workload of USPS, spread of potential germs from one household to another. I may try to pull off enough gift cards for each household to get one from Santa for Walmart or Target to use as supply boosters since before this mess even started, for the youngest families, I did giant packs of TP/Paper towels, rice and they've all said that it helps so much for the beginning of the year.
Here's to the weekend! Now if the dog will just sleep past 6 a.m.....
I really like the idea of moving Christmas to more of a reflection holiday. Parchment paper really is a great help for many items in baking-reheating a slice of pizza in the air fryer works wonders with parchment. When it gets cooler, I'm going to turn my kitchen attention to inexpensive comfort food, so should get a handle on the budget a bit more.
DeleteI usually don't care for spending logs as most have too much detail, like every little item bought at the grocery. Yours have been interesting, they're more summaries. Sorry about the plumbing, but it looks like it might have been caught early? I had a big leak once go unnoticed for weeks, major repair and huge water bill! Have a great weekend. Celie
ReplyDeleteYou are right about the leak getting caught early-a blessing. Had it gone too long and the water not shut off, our whole crawl space could have been flooded, plus gotten into the main house. I am pretty sure that was in my husbands head as he didn't complain too much about the cost of the repair-knowing it likely saved thousands n risks later.
Delete