All day today I have been working on planning out my spending for the rest of the month. I officially have a plan in place and despite my unbelievable desire to get the plan rolling by running to the store RIGHT NOW and purchasing all the groceries we need for this week I am NOT going out today. I've spent a great deal of time going through this weeks sales and coupons to plan out meals for the week and it's killing me not to just run to the store and buy everything but that would be a tremendous waste of time since I'll be there tomorrow and we don't need anything right now.
I've broken down the remaining budget into the remaining three weeks. This week I have $12.48 to spend on clothes which will earn me a $7 store reward (I need pants so badly that I'm pretty eager to spend money in this category). I will probably go over the $12.48 but that shouldn't hurt the budget. I need to spend $4.89 in the general merchandise part of the store to earn a $13 reward so I will almost certainly be purchasing light bulbs, something we don't need right now but will certainly need in the future (next time a light bulb burns out). I have $15 in rewards to use this week. The grocery list I just wrote up comes to an estimated $69. I also have budgeted in $25.43 for a bag of dog food which we're not in desperate need of but I want to get it taken care of before it sneaks up on me. The $20 in store rewards I should earn tomorrow (or shortly there after) will go towards additional food; fruits and veggies that we buy often, milk (because my family drinks it like water), or if someone just wants something I hadn't thought of. $20 is a great cushion for one week's worth of random run out and pick up food stuffs.
Here's the plan:
$17.37 pants and light bulbs
$69 groceries
$25.43 dog food
minus $15 store rewards
$96.80 spending this week
Plus $20 in store rewards to use for extras
My budget for the week is $107.08, this leaves me room to spend extra on the new pair of pants.
That leaves $107.08 each for the two remaining weeks of August. Considering I will have gotten the dog food out of the way as well as more cat litter (planned this week) and I've gone through the house and don't see anything other than food we'll be in need of this month I think I've got a solid plan and should actually meet my goal for August to get the average daily spending down to $17.99 a day by September 1st. (sorry for that horrendous run on sentence)
Spending rundown today: $0. NO SPEND day 58 for the year.
My budget for the month is $436 which leaves $321.24.
Average daily spending for 2015: $18.34
Not bad ! I hope you get it right for August. Being thrifty certainly demands a lot of preparation ! x
ReplyDeleteThanks! and you got that right; thriftiness takes a great deal of preparation to pull off. It's too easy to get lazy and spend considerably more than needs to be spent. I'm so glad I got this week planned out. Now I just need to stick to the plan. Onwards and upwards!
DeleteHow is that boring???? I LOVE working with budgets - you should see me on Ted's payday - he was home this year because he took the day off since it was our anniversary and I said "Oh, good, now you can work out the budget with me".....I was ecstatic, he was less than thrilled :)
ReplyDeleteKeep it up - you are doing fantastic!!! I'll tell you one thing, ever since I "retired", I have MAYBE spent $20 TOTAL on clothes (and it has been 5 years) - I wear my raggedy old clothes around the house and save my nice jeans/capris for when I go out so they last forever. I'm lucky in that respect I am DEFINITELY not a clothes horse, plus I absolutely HATE clothes shopping....well shopping for anything really!
Oh my gosh, are you kidding me!? Who wants to read about my budget? I post it for accountability but I imagine people are like, "gah, this is burning my eyeballs."
DeleteHAPPY ANNIVERSARY you two! (Need day trip update please)
Ours is coming up here soon too :)
So, I virtually never buy clothes for myself. I have ONE pair of pants that fit right now and its a pair of blue jeans that have fairly large holes worn into both knees. Needless to say my wardrobe is not practical for many situations. I've been putting it off getting new jeans for far too long (hoping to lose 50 pounds so I can't fit into all my pre-pregnancy clothes (and wearing a pair of black maternity corduroys if I need to go anywhere half nice)). Yeah, I haven't been pregnant for over three years so I don't think I should be wearing maternity clothing for any reason. I also hate clothes shopping, SO MUCH! At this point I have some very, very old clothing in my limited wardrobe and honestly I am just fine with that BUT I really need new jeans that fit. Ahhhhh, life; haha!
Sounds like a plan for success. Curbibg eating out this week is my goal $0!
ReplyDeleteOne week of not eating out; you got this! And believe me I know what kind of a struggle that can be. That used to be my weak point and Starbucks. I cannot believe how far I have come. The realization of it still astounds me.
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