Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Monthly Spending Update

It's not so easy for me to go from not really having a food budget to trying to track expenses by the week. I find myself constantly thinking about what's in the fridge and how I can make it last the week (without making Nathan miserable). I'm hoping this will get easier with practice, because we are set to save a significant amount of money, which as discussed earlier, will be used to send us on a guilt free vacation to escape from the MN winter.



I say guilt free because I feel like any extra money should go towards paying our massive student loans or saving for a house, so if we weren't cutting $$ somewhere, I wouldn't have total peace of mind spending $2,500 or so on a nice vacation.

Speaking of….any suggestions of great, warm, not too expensive places to go? Right now I'm set on Nicaragua, but I'm open….

I can't believe I'm talking about this when it's just about to be summer here.

Onto the Spending Recap: We have about $143 (out of our $225 monthly budget) for the remaining 2 weeks of May. Sounds like a lot, but we just ran out of olive oil and also will be going to the cabin next weekend, which means lots of cooking & booze!

Cheers,

Kelly

2 comments:

  1. I am totally jealous of your food spending. I have tried to get mine under control and just can't. I spend in one week what you do in a month. How the heck does that happen?
    I am in Calif but food can't be that much more.
    I have to give this more effort.
    Do you ever post your grocery hauls?
    I have videos of mine on youTube.
    Sorry, I have no clue where to vacation. I could use one of those myself.

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  2. Hi Marje,

    Yes we have posted receipts, but haven't gotten very regular about it. A good website to check is www.thirtyaweek.wordpress.com , they are very good about posting theirs! I would be interested to see your receipts and see what is costing you so much, because I've looked at your blog & know you don't eat processed foods. My general guidelines are:

    -Buy grains & beans in bulk, buy only dry beans instead of canned.

    -Buy whatever produce is on sale and then find ways to use it, instead of finding a recipe and then going to get all the ingredients.

    -Don't buy meat. We don't buy milk or cheese very often either.

    -Make sure to eat everything in the fridge before it goes bad.

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