Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Day nine of $10 a day (for ten days)

One more day to go! I need to buy cat food and dog food pretty much first thing next month. I'm kind of excited to go grocery shopping for real and not just pick up four or five essential items that I need in order to make a few meals. But I'm really happy with how this $10 a day challenge turned out. 

I did not go into it with the cupboards and fridge all stocked up and still I was able to buy a few items here and there and get really creative with what we did have. One of the main things I changed these past nine days was eating considerably cheaper proteins and we had a few unintentional vegetarian days. We ate kind of a lot of eggs, I found that pork for $1.58 a pound which went a long way, and we had a few different meals with canned tuna fish. I am going to try harder from now on to incorporate more inexpensive and good sale proteins into my grocery trips. We really eat a lot of $3.99lb ground turkey which obviously shoots up my grocery bill.

I also did not buy any food while working and I did not eat out. Even though I never spend very much on food while working, not spending anything does bring down that daily average.

The $10 a day spending was not just essential food items. I did purchase cat litter, some pricey bar soap, a small gift for a friend, and I brought home two boxes of ice cream bars (totally a luxury food). I was still able to buy some essential to us food that is a bit more on the pricy side. Little Abe loves string cheese, which I purchased twice. I pretty regularly buy him organic yogurt (Stonyfield is our favorite) in the tubes, the kind they sell specifically for kids which I then freeze and he eats as popsicles. I try and find the yogurt tubes on sale but I did purchase one box (I'm pretty sure it was at full price) while doing this challenge.

All in all this challenge was yet another discipline exercise for me and I learned a few things from it. I'm planning for a no spend day tomorrow but I have $1.48 left in my budget so I'll probably get myself a treat while I'm at work tomorrow.

Spending rundown today: $23.03 on groceries and $2.39 on a small gift for a friend.

My budget for the month is $450.79 which leaves $1.48

Average daily spending for 2015: $17.65

6 comments:

  1. If you weren't tallying the money, and describing the challenge, simply sharing you menu and shopping, I bet no one would have understood you were on a challenge. Well done. I love that you didn't deprive yourselves, but rather just made deliberate choice differences than other weeks.

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    1. Thank-you very much. I was surprised at how this challenged turned out. You're right, there were certainly a lot of little things I refrained from buying but we weren't deprived by any means.

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  2. I think you did absolutely fantastic!!! You should be proud of yourself!! I have a question, what different meals did you make with tuna? All I ever can think of is tuna sandwiches & tuna added to pasta salad - cold since I'm not a huge fan of hot tuna.

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    1. Thank-you Sue. The noodles is our biggest one, with cheese, and peas but hot because we do like tuna. But since you don't like tuna that much I doubt you'd like it added to a box of Rice-a-roni long grain rice. That is one of my son's favorite meals, rice with a meat mixed in.

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  3. Congratulations on your low (enviously low) daily expenditures. It is so very impressive and something I would like to try and emulate.
    I read your response to my comment a few days ago and your suggestion that I start counting a little later. I decided rather than start over on Sunday, I would go ahead and keep my current numbers, even though right now this keeps my daily spending very high.
    I generally buy clothes seasonally, only as needed, so I bought navy slacks to replace some that just can't be worn anywhere but in the house, black jeans (also replacement for a pair I have worn for at least 10 years, and some plaid slacks (great deal and plaid is supposed to be very fashion forward this year. This will be my only fad purchase.) I will possibly need a new sweater and that should do it for my fall wardrobe update. I figure it might take a month before I am ok with the daily average, but that is ok. I have now had 4 straight days of zero additional expenses and need only produce this week from the store. I am going shopping tomorrow to buy gifts for 2 Christmas shoeboxes for an 8 year old boy and girl in a third world country. even though it is money out, I am not counting it as part of my personal daily expense.

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    1. I commend you for sticking with it. I think I would have started over after the start you had. Way to go! Four days in a row with no expenses is great. Your average will surly works its way down very quickly.

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