No Spend September Update

Another weekend, another shopping trip!

Yesterday, I headed to Costco and spent the majority of our remaining money for the first half of September. I’m not too concerned because we are almost half way through the month and I shouldn’t need to go grocery shopping before next weekend.

I stocked up on a lot of staples during my shopping trip like oatmeal, eggs, and yogurt; and I also bought weekly perishables like bread, milk, and fruit. A couple of the items I bought were for our monthly/weekly meal plan: sandwich rolls and tortillas. The last thing I bought was a splurge for dinner last night: ribs! I paid $30.00 for 10 pounds, or 3 racks, of ribs. We will get 2 full meals for our family out of this, and 2 lunches. This was paid for out of our normal No Spend September grocery budget.

On to the actual numbers. Before this trip, we had $148.39 remaining from our first half of the month budget, or $348.39. Our total at Costco was $108.68. That leaves us with $39.71 for the first half of the month’s budget, or $239.71 total left in our grocery budget for the month of No Spend September. I’m feeling pretty good about where we are right now.

We will only need to buy perishables and a few things based on our meal plan for the rest of the month. We are good on meat and I don’t foresee us needing to buy many more staples this month. I’m really hoping we can stay on track with our grocery budget this month and continue throwing all our extra money towards debt repayment!

No Spend September Update

The Husband and I went grocery shopping last night, and I feel like it was a huge success!

We planned our meals for the month of September last week and we tried to use as much food out of our freezer and pantry as possible while we were planning. The only meat we needed to buy was chicken and pancetta. The chicken I actually bought last week at Costco and we did buy the pancetta last night during our shopping trip.

As we shopped, we did buy some items that weren’t on our list because we realized we were low on them or they were a good price. These included things like barbecue sauce, fruit, olives, and mushrooms, among other things.

Of our $400 grocery budget for the month, we spent…. $51.61. We still have $348.39. We will probably need milk, bread, and eggs before too long; and we need fruit every week, but I am feeling optimistic about our chances of staying within our budgetary constraints.

In our freezer we had a roast, shrimp, breakfast sausages, pork loins and pork chops, several pounds of ground turkey, and chopped pork. I did buy chicken but we tried to plan our meals around what we had instead of buying stuff. We also had the makings for a frittata, some left over steaks that we are going to use for Philly cheese steaks, and various other odds and ends that we were able to tie together to make some meals. Our pantry was pretty well stocked as well so we didn’t need to buy a ton.

As far as our dinners go, we only need to buy the perishable items we need each week now, and we are set on breakfasts for the month. (Actually, we have cereal coming out our ears! Last time I went shopping I bought 3 Costco boxes, so 6 really, of cereal; and when I got home, I found 5 boxes… preparation FAIL!) We also have plenty of cheese and lunch meat for lunches for the month and tons of snacks so we should be good there, too.

We are almost one week into our No Spend month and I am hopeful we will make good progress towards paying off our debt this month!

September Goals

We had to travel to Oregon over the long weekend to my nephew’s wedding. On the way home, we also stopped and visited my aunt, uncle, and cousin in Southern Oregon. Out of the three nights, we had to book a hotel for two of them.

The best part is that we didn’t have to pay for our hotels. We had one free night through the hotels.com website and 28000 points through our Choice hotels reward program. The one free night was easy to redeem and, actually, so were the points. We used 12000 to get a free night’s stay in a room with 3 beds.

We did have to pay for gas and food for the trip. Most, but not all, of our gas was paid for in cash. We charged one fill up to the tune of $24.00 We might have enough money left over at the end of the week to put that towards our credit card, but it really depends on if we have any gas money left over on Friday. As of right now, The Husband is filling up my gas tank and I have $21 left in my gas envelope. (He has $60 to fill it up.) He will also need gas this week, however, and I don’t think he has any money left because we also used his weekly gas money for the trip.

We charged all our food for the trip. In total, it was about $200. We had breakfast each morning at the hotel and then had to buy lunch and dinner. The night of the wedding, dinner was at the wedding. It was more than I would have liked, but we have to eat.

Our goal to get the credit card bill under $9000 seems to be getting further and further away. I just don’t see how we are going to make it. The $200 for food this weekend certainly didn’t help! The Husband doesn’t have any overtime on this check and we are already sending as much to the credit card with this pay period as we can afford. It’s not looking good.

Tonight after dinner, The Husband and I are going to go grocery shopping. Our meals are planned for the month of September, but we haven’t had a chance to shop yet. We tried to use as many ingredients from our pantry and freezer as possible, therefore, we shouldn’t have to spend too much.

For the month, we budgeted $400 and I am really hoping we will be able to stick to that. I’ll keep you posted once we do our shopping!

Using Things Up

I am in no way a minimalist, but as I look around my house, I see so much abundance! We have more than we need of almost everything: clothes, shoes, food, cleaning products, towels, rags, etc. I in no way want to become a minimalist, but I do want to try to start using things up, especially bath and beauty products.

Even though we just moved and cleaned out all our cupboards in the process, underneath our sinks in the new house, it’s teeming with lotions, facial cleansers, soaps, and various cleaning products. Why? Well, an honest answer would tell you many reasons, really. 

·         I buy too much

·         I subscribe to Ipsy (a makeup/beauty product sample subscription site)

·         I have a fear of running out

·         I’m gifted a lot of these kinds of products

One of my current goals is to start using what I have instead of buying more. Having said that, if I run out of something that I use daily, I will buy it. For example, if I use up the last lotion in my house, I’m not going to do without, but, on the flipside, if I have six more lotions in a drawer, and I run out of one particular one, I don’t want to buy more until those six are gone.

Let’s look at the reasons of why we have too much.

I buy too much. Plain and simple. Why do I buy too much? Now that’s a little more complicated. I love lotions and soaps and bath products. But I don’t use them at the speed at which I buy them. Also, when I buy something if I don’t really like, I still keep it; and then it just sits under the sink basically collecting dust. I buy too much. Interestingly enough, I don’t use a lot of these types of products, but I sure like to buy them.

I do have a monthly subscription to Ipsy. Ipsy is a makeup sample subscription site that sends you a makeup bag filled with 5 samples every month for the low price of $10.99. (Did you notice how I rationalized that?) But in all honesty, I enjoy it. It sends me tons of stuff I never use, (because I don’t wear a lot of makeup) but I still enjoy getting it every month. In truth, it actually probably saves me money because I buy less stuff at Target and Walmart that I don’t use.  Because of my subscription I have several little bottles of face cleanser floating around, I have several bottles of sample size lotion, and I have several jars/tubes of face moisturizers and serums. And I need to use them up!

I have an irrational fear of running out of something. Last week when I went to Walmart to buy toilet paper, I didn’t get one 36-pack of toilet paper, I got three. I also always have to have spare laundry detergent on hand as well as a spare dish washing detergent, because heaven forbid we should ever run out! The Kids’ have about 6 extra bottles of shampoo and conditioner under their sink and I literally have a drawer full of soaps under my sink just waiting to be used.  But they aren’t getting used because I replace them way faster than we could ever use them!

I am also constantly gifted different of these kinds of items. I love soap, so people buy it for me. I probably have 12 – 15, mostly gifts. I have a huge bottle of Philosophy body wash that I haven’t so much as smelled, waiting to be used. Also a gift. Every year for Christmas, my in-laws give me a big bag full of Victoria’s Secret bath stuff. (My favorite scent of all time is from there.) But because I don’t use it on the regular, it is just compounding under the sink. Every year I use maybe two bottles and add 5 I received for Christmas. I don’t want to sound ungrateful, because I’m very appreciative of these gifts, I’m just trying to point out one of the ways “my collection” has grown.

Because of all these things, I am really trying to use things up. I will still have an extra laundry or dish detergent under the sink, but I’m trying to only have one extra, not three. I will still have one extra bottle of shampoo and conditioner, not six. And I will try to resist the temptation to buy any more bath or beauty products until they are needed. I want to use what I have, because I have a lot!

No Spend September

… has officially started. With today being the first day of September, our family has begun our annual spending fast for the month. We all participate: no buying Starbucks, no buying lunch, no new clothes, no new nothing that isn’t an absolute necessity!

Being that September actually started on a Friday, we saw the first real impact of No Spend September today: no Starbucks. Usually a girlfriend and I meet at Starbucks with our kids every Friday before work; this week we bowed out.

Normally, we would also buy the kids school pictures, but in a neat twist of fate, their pictures were today so I actually paid for them yesterday because I paid on-line.

Our goal for the remainder of the month is to spend as minimally as possible and to send all the extra towards our credit card debt. I am really trying to bring our balance down to under $9000 by our next statement, but that’s going to be a stretch.

Over the course of the month, we will try to decrease our food bill by about $100. Instead of budgeting $500 for food, we only budget $400. It’s going to be tight, but I think we can do it.

Our meals are planned for the entire month and we based most of those meals off of what we already had in our pantry and freezer. There was a lot of meat and frozen meals already in our freezer so we were really able to work with it!

Wish us luck and debt payoff progress as we embark on another no spend month!

Unusual Spending for September

We do have some unusual spending coming up for the month of September, but for the most part, because of No Spend September, our month should be relatively inexpensive.

The kids have school pictures coming up in September; and even though it’s our no spend month, we still purchase school pictures because… life.  We have a wedding to attend in Oregon on Labor Day weekend, the first weekend in September. We also have a play (possibly 2) in September, and we will have dinner out on that (those) nights. Because of No Spend September, our spending should be really low for the month.

Although many people think school pictures are a waste of money in this day and age “because we take so many pictures and we can just print them ourselves”, I still buy school pictures. Yes, we take pictures and CAN print them out ourselves, but how many of us actually do? I am definitely guilty of this, and for that reason, we always buy school pictures. We like the “record” it keeps of our kids’ changes. To us, school pictures are money well spent. To cover this cost, we should have enough money in our “school” envelope. We try to fund this envelope all year long because school is expensive!

My nephew is getting married next month. They live in Oregon, a 9-hour drive away, and we are going to the wedding. We are driving 6.5 hours on Friday and the remaining 3 hours to the ceremony on Saturday. We will stay where the wedding is Saturday night, then Sunday we will drive to my uncle’s house in yet another city in Oregon, visit and spend the night there and then drive home on Monday. Normally we would need to pay for hotels for Friday and Saturday nights, but not this time. One night we are staying at hotel free because of Hotel.com's reward program of stay 10 nights, get one night free. The other night will also be free because we had over 25,000 point accumulated with another hotel chain from our summer vacation. We redeemed 10,000 of those points for another free hotel room. I’m super happy about those savings! We will need to pay for gas and food for the trip though. A lot of the trip should be covered with our normal gas money, but not all of it. And obviously food… We will bring snacks, but will eat most, if not all, of our meals out. We have already bought the wedding gift, so we shouldn’t have any other expenses related to the wedding.

Lastly, we do have some plays to attend in September. It is important to us, as a couple, to continue to date. To that end, we have purchased season tickets to the theater for the last several years. The one downside of this is that we don’t get to choose the dates; they mail them to us and we go when they say. This year, they say 2 in September. We hold season tickets with another couple and we go out to dinner with them beforehand. I wish they weren’t in September because of No Spend September, but it is what it is and we truly enjoy going!

This should be about it for September and I’m hoping nothing else unexpected pops up!

How do you plan and pay for unusual spending?

Recap on August's Unusual Spending

We did alright estimating August’s unusual spending.

We had to pay $515 for dance fees and registration and that was a killer!!! That paid for tuition for August and September (minus The Girl’s solo fees) and registration for the year. We paid for that out of our yearly expenses account. I’m not super happy the money had to come out of there, but I am super happy that it didn’t have to be put on a credit card. One thing I did not factor in to paying for August was pointe shoes for ballet. Holy cow, those were expensive!!! The Girl is going on pointe for the first time this year and thus needed the shoes. After paying for all the pieces: shoes, ribbons, elastics, and toe protectors (I don’t know the official term) we walked out of the store about $150 poorer. On the plus side, though the expense was not planned for, there was enough money in the “Kids’ Activities” envelope to cover the extra cost.

My dad’s party was a rousing success! I spent a little more than I would have liked out of my own pocket. All the food was paid for by other family members, but I paid for all the decorations and plates and cups. It was a Halloween themed party and we had a lot of decorations already and borrowed a couple of boxes from my dad, but it still wasn’t enough.  I spent $50 at the Dollar Tree on decorations and plates, napkins and silverware. In truth, I probably bought more than I needed, but I wanted to make it special for my dad. He only turns 75 once! Luckily, my house was pretty clean and I had plenty of time to decorate and figure out what kind of decorations we still needed.

It wasn’t too bad of a month, but I’m hoping September is even better!