This is going much better than I would have thought especially with the idea of spending less than $200 on groceries for the month. I did plan on some non-essential but excellent deal shopping at Target today. I got to the store and started grabbing the items from memory that were on my list. Over half way through, I needed to check my list regarding yogurt types on sale, that is when I realized I had left the bag with my coupons and list at home. I was frustrated but decided to purchase Zach’s t-shirts and leave the store with no food. That really does improve my overall numbers at this point. I am going to include a day by day spending recap in addition to totals at the bottom.
Friday January 1st- No spending!
Saturday January 2nd- $3.25 to rent War Room for our “date”
Sunday January 3rd- $3 ($2 for entry and $1 for Zach a drink) $2 on a newspaper because of 4 sets of coupons.
Monday January 4th-No spending!
Tuesday January 5th- $21 on a meal out for Matt and myself. Matt had taken my van to get oil changed, tires rotated and van cleaned, this was all covered by Maintenance plan, this ended up taking the whole morning so we decided to grab a quick lunch together. It is extremely rare that we get 2 “dates” in a month so two in a week is unheard of . I am proud to say that we have spent $25 on 2 dates.
Wednesday January 6th- No spending.
Thursday January 7th- I had an hair appointment for color this morning but this is out of our budget fund that we stock every six months. Matt and I talked about it and decided that this was essential spending! We drove to Matthews for Kendall and Zach eye appointments, we decided to pack our lunch, picked up a box of free donuts on the way home and the biggest decision of the day was to skip IKEA. I have flex spending which covered both the appointments and ordering of Rex Spec for Zach. I did purchase a pack of t-shirts for Zach at Target for $5.02 and ordered 6 Polo shirts for Matt from Amazon for a total of $30.
Groceries- $2
Entertainment- $25
Clothing- $35
Gas- $87.42
We are tracking very well for the month. I am so excited. I have already made a menu plan for the month so this should assist in keeping the groceries low. Lily has a two cheer competitions this month which end up being very expensive and will definitely use up our “eating out/entertainment budget” for the month. But since this is spending that we already agreed and committed to I am not going to let that stop us trying to keep all the other expenses as low as possible for the month.
In regards to clothing, the white t-shirts for Zach were needed as he currently only has 3 and with temperatures staying below freezing, I like him to wear one daily. The polo shirts I purchased for Matt average out to less than $5 each so I always like to grab up this deal when available. Matt usually wears short sleeve shirts most of the year and his are becoming “worn” looking so although not on a need list they will definitely save us money in the long run.