Saturday, September 10, 2016

No-spend September Update 2

9/10

Well, we are only a third of the way into the month and I have already spent about half of my grocery budget… EEEEK!

Yesterday I went to both Costco and Winco.  I had already spent $46.50 at the Farmer’s Market this past weekend, leaving $353.50. At Costco I spent $116.83, all on food, leaving $236.67. Next, I went to Winco and spent another $22.79, leaving me with just $213.88 for the rest of the month!

At Costco, I only bought food, however, for half of my shopping trip I had some boots in my cart I was going to buy for The Girl, but then it occurred to me that it was No-spend September so I took them out of my cart and continued on my merry way. At Costco, I bought a case of canned green beans (12 cans), 2 packages of bread (2 loaves each), 8 gallons of milk, 8 pounds of butter, 2 boxes of yogurt, a bag of clementine oranges, baby-bel cheese, Cheeze-Its, trail mix, Pirates Booty, and Pub Mix. Other than perishables, we shouldn’t have to go grocery shopping for the next two weeks or so, so I hope our budget makes it!

I only had to buy a few things at Winco. I bought 4 boxes of tea, 2 for school and 2 for home, hamburger buns, Ritz crackers, bananas, and 4 boxes of Lil’ Debbie Nutty Bars.
We were running low on snacks that could be used for school lunches so that’s where a lot of the money went.  Snacks aren’t cheap.  Because Costco now takes Visa, I charged our purchase there for points and then took the money and put it in a jar to use to pay off the credit card bill when it comes due.  Winco only accepts cash or debit so I paid cash there.

Yesterday I also had to give The Boy $15 out of our house “petty cash” to pay for a Leadership shirt for school. He is in Leadership and expected to participate in all of the activities so we needed to buy the shirt. Unfortunately, our school budget envelope is currently depleted so I had to take that money from somewhere else.  (I also have to pay $60 for a field trip for The Boy, $40 for him, $20 for a parent chaperone, and I’m not quite sure where that money is going to come from.)

I’m a little nervous… only $213 to last over 3 weeks. That leaves me with about $71 per week.  I need to get to Walmart and buy The Girl conditioner. She is all out. She has 3 bottles of shampoo yet so at one point I must have bought 4 shampoos instead of 2 and 2 like I had intended. Normally, this would come out of our essentials envelope, but in September we pay for toiletries with our grocery budget. Other than that, I can’t think of too much more I would need to buy that isn’t food related.  I should be able to stretch $71… wish me luck.

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