As the first full month of my experiment comes to a close, let’s talk discretionary spending – by which I mean “variable costs” as opposed to purely non-essential purchases. Today I downloaded all of April and May’s purchase history from Mint and filtered out fixed costs/the basics (stuff I do not include in my tracking on here
Groceries totaled $106.41 this week, which looks like a “whoa, lowest total yet” – but it’s artificially low for a couple reasons. First, the Agent has been on staycation this week, so while I have still been making most meals at home, I’ve blown May’s restaurant budget in the past week alone. On top of
In the past week I have parted with $141.71, almost 42% more that I had intended… well, that’s not strictly true. I did purchase a shoe rack intentionally – the jumble of shoes jammed into a large brown paper bag in the coat closet just wasn’t working anymore. With spring weather so unpredictable, it’s really,
Closest week to goal so far! $117.31, and $25 of that went to donations (non-perishable food drive in the neighborhood – made a quick TJs run to supplement what we already had lounging in the cupboards). Total grocery spending came in under the $100 weekly budget, and even included a couple health and household items
Week 3 marked the first consecutive zero-dollar days! To celebrate, I’m letting myself off the hook for daily posts, but still tracking receipts for weekly summaries. Weekly spending was not my best, since a $30 sundry supply restock yesterday tipped the scales just over double my goal at $203.91. The actual grocery portion wasn’t too far
The second installment of EcoNOMical comes in the form of a review. I consider myself passionate about wine, but not necessarily a wine snob, so I figured I’d try some boxed varietals in the hopes of lowering the cost of my wine habit (without sacrificing enjoyment, of course). A few days ago I cracked open (figuratively –
No-spend Sunday might become a thing around here. If I can get my shopping trips down to two days per week, I think I can reign in my spending much better…and if I can come up with no-cost plans for half of my weekend, I won’t even feel adrift in a sea of uselessness! Yeah,
Realization: Either break out coffee from the rest of the grocery budget, or increase said budget to account for coffee comprising nearly one third some weeks. We like good coffee in this house, and go through a full pot most days of the week. Sometimes we forego coffee on weekends, but it still works out to about
Curveball time. Earlier in the week a wise person suggested “maybe if you know Tarzhey is your weakness, change your shopping habits so you don’t have to go there.” I happen to respect this person a great deal, and had every intention of putting this into practice before the next Tarzhey essential popped up on
Somehow yesterday’s revelations did not discourage me from yet another grocery run today. Turns out although I am not too bad about emotional eating or shopping, my Southern roots often lead me to fixing others’ problems with food (or trying to, at least). $42.61 went to groceries today, mostly for the housemate (who is going