Monthly Comparison, April to May 2018

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 anyway, like mortgage, insurance, utility bills). What’s left behind is mostly grocery stores and restaurants – and World Market, which counts as a grocery store for some credit card rewards programs, but why kid ourselves here, those receipts fit almost exclusively in the décor and wine categories. I might be hyper-aware of this contrast since today marks my first trip there during this experiment 😉

Overall, I spent $747 less in May than I spent in April – quite a chunk of kept change! Since my monthly outlay does not usually include a new cell phone, I am only staking claim to just under $200 as “money I actually saved by not spending it.” See, if I’d lead with the $200, that in itself would have seemed like a big win – but I don’t think I deserve to rest on my money-saving laurels just yet.

I will, however, pat myself on the back for the ~$200 drop in “grocery” costs (quotes because Tarzhey is rolled into this – and it’s even more exciting when I consider that number is $105 lower despite a couple pricey non-grocery items I picked up there in May). Since I’ve been looking to Amazon to limit my Tarzhey runs (and potential for impulse purchases), it’s a bit more difficult to compare the $285 drop among Freddie’s, Tarzhey, TJ’s and Whole Foods to the $33 upswing at Safeway and $97 increase at Amazon. Because I have a rough idea of what goes into that Amazon number, I pretty much split the difference and settled on “in the neighborhood of $200 grocery savings.” I am impressed by the $58 drop in Whole Foods spending, because coffee and fancy gluten-free rolls are often pricey items on those receipts. Suspect I could shift another $50 or so onto a monthly TJ’s run and save even more.

Although I went to World Market both months (once each month, actually spent more this month but totally ok with that for…reasons I’ve alluded to recently 🙂 ), there are a couple things I didn’t do, that saved some money:
-Avoiding Home Goods in May essentially offset my increased restaurant spending. (I should probably mention my monthly restaurant budget is $50, so we’re not talking jaw-dropping amounts here)
-I stopped paying for a gym membership I hadn’t been using…then showed up more often during the grace period (to get my money’s worth!) than I had in the five months prior.

Goals for June 2018:
-Avoid Home Goods and World Market
-Visit Tarzhey a maximum of once per week, and stick to the grocery section (been pretty good at this, with a couple jewelry/summer top transgressions)
-Analyze Amazon spending more closely, since it now provides more “grocery” than “idle shopping” line items (the latter should be virtually non-existent)