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How I Wasted Money This Week
One of the things that happens to me when I am really working to save money or trying to keep my budget on track is that I begin to notice little things that cost more money than they should in my mind. This week has been one of those weeks, we are so close to being on track and even ahead that I am constant thinking of ways to stretch us that last little bit. I often share about how I save money but in order to get an accurate picture I am going to share on how I have “wasted” money this week. I will start by giving you my definition of “waste”. Waste equals buying something that was not needed or on the best deal possible! I will be the first also to say that not all of the items on this list were a waste but maybe better viewed as overspending. I will also say up front most of these things I would not or can not change, so enjoy
- Purchased 2 new bras at JCPenny. I had received $30 in rewards for the month of January. My intention was to use this money to buy a bra. I have purchased 10 bras in the past 6 months but am not really happy with any of them. The major problem is that the underwire comes out the side. I did purchase 2 without underwire but these did not provide as much coverage as I like. Instead of 1 bra I ended up purchasing 2 bras and a set of pajamas. I spent $28 and saved $92.
- Throwing out over a years supply of Vitamins. In cleaning, out the pantry on Saturday, I rediscovered several packages of Juice Plus vitamins. I had purchased these several years ago and each year start by taking these regular for less than 3 weeks. This year, I knew that I was not going to complete the cycle again. What I did not realize was that all the vitamins that I had expired sometime between 2010 or sooner. Into the trash, they all went.
- I often keep extra food items in my bathroom closet, simply because it has some additional storage space. I have been seeing on a shelf and forgetting about a couple of cases of Protein shakes that I purchased last year at Costco. My plan was to starting taking these for lunch; however one case expired in August of 2013 and the second in November 2013. I actually attempted a shake from the November case but they just are not drinkable. I know that I spent around $50 on these cases.
- Between Thursday and Sunday, we have eaten out 3 times. We have lots of food in the house but chose to eat out anyway.
- Girl Scout cookies. 5 boxes to be exact. Definitely not a need but very good!
- $719 for 2 pair of glasses for myself. I need new glasses and I have to go to Bifocals. But I chose a really expensive frame and also purchased a pair of sunglass to use this summer. This was definitely an overspend.
So am I the only one wasting money this week?
Shopping Trip
So far this month, I have spent $217.56 on groceries. Yesterday, we went shopping and I have no plans to make another trip this month. I have come to realize that I usually don’t shop like other people. I find it very interesting to read the details about other people’s trips and thought it might be interesting to explain how I do shop. I live in a very small town, which has a Walmart and one grocery store chain. I try to combine trips and usually buy items that are on sale only for most trips. Keep in mind that we currently have 40# of chicken breast, 50# of ground venison, a bag of shrimp and probably 10# of pork in our freezer. At the brand sale earlier in the month, I stocked up on canned goods including beans and veggie as well as staples such as oatmeal, ketchup and mustard. This month, my focus was stocking up at our local store (Food Lion) brand sale and keeping the grocery bill as low as possible. Any amount left in the budget for the month will definitely help to meet our financial goals for this month.
We did end up shopping at CVS, Food Lion, Harris Teeter and Costco yesterday. The first stop was CVS, I purchased eye patches for Kendall and grabbed the best deals on items that we use. I spent a total of $13.69 of which $4.59 was the cost of the eye patches. At Harris Teeter, I spent $8.96 for only items on sale that ended up costing less than $1 each they included 4 boxes of Hamburger Helper, 2 boxes of cereals, bottle of shampoo, mousse, 2 bottles of Hair Spray, hair gel, toothpaste, 2 boxes of granola bars and a roll of sausage. Costco is the only store that I would actually consider grocery shopping because I purchased items that we were out of including milk, creamer and eggs. I spent $73 at Costco. The final stop was Food Lion where I had $12.50 in coupons from the previous sale, I ended up grabbing items for our Super Bowl party and spending an additional $14 above the coupons. The total spent for the day was $105.
Does anyone else shop this way?
January No-low Spend Challenge Update
- Get $100 in our Emergency Fund.
- Pay off the outstanding Verizon bill from where we switch names
- Deposit for Beach vacation
- Reduce Groceries to$400 for the month with the remaining $200 set aside for Cheerleading competitions. I am currently sitting at $217 spending on Groceries for the month. I did already use $100 for our first competition last week. Goal half met!
Transfer $50 to auto fund by the end of the month. This has been transferred! Goal Met!
I am actually pleased with my progress so far this month. After our trip to Michigan I was shooting for 50% achievement but I think the way things are looking, I may be able to met 3/5 of these goals. Progress is nice.
The additional challenge this week was to sell something! Zach has just gone through a huge growth spurt and I was able to sell some of his clothes for $30. I have another lady also wanting to look at the rest.
Extra money has been coming in this month due to me picking up some extra time at work. The hours have been very long but I hope to get this year off to a good start!
Wordless Wednesday- Car vs Guardrail
Goals for 2014
Today, I am caught up!! The last two weeks have been some of the busiest I can remember but finally we are caught up! I realized however that I had not posted my goals for this year.
I am going to address these a little differently than I have in the past. My financial goals will change month by month, my intent is that I have an overall goal for the year and then I can adjust each month to meet the goals.
Financial Goals– 1. Pay off lawn mower by March 2014 to avoid interest being charged. Current status $801.51 remaining. Plan to pay $100 in both January and February with remaining $600 to come from expected tax refund.
2. Emergency Fund to $2000. Current status $0. Plan to add $100 a month for first 5 months of the year, then $200 remaining 7 months.
3. Groceries: Spend $600 a month
4. Gas: Spend $400 a month with any remaining to be move to Auto fund for repairs.
These are some high goals but I really need to get our finances under control this year and stop living pay check to pay check. My monthly goals for January I have already post as part of the low spend/No Spend challenge. I don’t anticipate meeting all the goals due to our trip but I do hope to achieve at least 50% of them!
Blogging: Goal: 15 per month Currently I am at 50% for 2013.
Weight: Goal to exercise 3x a week and to be down to 150 by December 2014. Currently I am nowhere near this goal. To met I need to lose 6# a month. I am going to focus of drinking water and getting the exercise in.
So there are my objectives in writing. Do you have any goals or by this 11th day of January have they already changed?
Budget and Traveling
Two weeks ago, I had just signed up to be part of Carla’s challenge of Low/ No Spend January. You can see the goals I set here. However just a few short days later we decided to make a trip to Michigan to visit family. After looking at the goals again, I am going to see if I can at least manage to achieve a couple prior to the end of the month. Since I definitely don’t have an update today, I am going to talk a little about our travel budget instead.
Because this is a trip that we had not initially budgeted for, we felt very strongly that we needed to set and stick to a budget. January is one of the two months this year that I will receive an extra check, so this was part of the basis for the budget. I am excited to say that even after paying for the new tail lights on the van that were needed because of our wreck that we are $50 under budget!!!! I have decided that this will be placed in our auto fund to meet one of the low spend goals of the month!
Here is a breakdown of our spending:
Gas and tolls $350
Hotel $285
Food $185 (We were treated to several meals by family, but also took with us several meals to reheat. We also packed lots of drinks and snacks)
Bronner’s $115
Replacement parts $106
Total Spent $1050 for a 4 day trip! I am so proud that we stuck to our budget!
The Worst Travel Day EVER!
I have been travelling between North Carolina and Michigan, for over 10 years now. I have made this 800 mile journey probably 15 times but the worst trip ever occurred last week. The adventure started early in the evening when I was woken up half an hour earlier than plan by the sound of Kendall coughing and throwing up. I really didn’t give it much thought because I had made her eat earlier when she was not hungry. After we loaded up it was off to Krispy Kreme for our late night snack. Unfortunately, I had made a mistake and we missed closing my 20 minutes. Next was an usual chain of events that caused a relatively long trip become a really really unforgettable trip. Our GPS sent us on a totally different route than we had ever take, we have since discovered that by mistake we told it to avoid toll roads. We headed west to Tennessee, I will spare all of us the details but Kendall was sick twice more in the first four hours. Matt and I had a serious discussion about turning around and heading home but Kendall did not want to because in her logic ” We have packed everything in the van for the trip.” The route itself was very twisting and turning, it felt like we were in the mountains for ever. Our most uneventful period was between 4am and 9am. We stopped and ate at Cracker Barrel around 6am and thought okay we are about half way with the additional stops we should be at the hotel around 2pm. Things turned from long to worse in Kentucky around 9:30 when it started to snow heavily. In the next 6 hours we travelled less than 200 miles in terrible condition that included “white outs” and long periods of sitting waiting on wrecks to clear. At around 5pm we made it to Ann Arbor and discovered that the further north we headed the better the travel and weather appeared to be. So we decided to continue on. We arrived at our hotel around 8:30pm a mere 22 and half hours after we left! We were both exhausted!
I am completing this post after our travel back to North Carolina on Sunday January 5th. The weather was again awful for travel and we ended up in a wreck in Ohio. Our van hit a patch of ice, did a couple of circles, hit a guardrail. The van was driveablel l will post pictures next week, however we managed to arrive home in 16 hours and so the trip to Michigan remains the worst Travel day EVER!
Wordless Wednesday- Michigian Trip
December/Year in Review
Here is a look at where we are in December, in addition to how I did for the year. I will be posting new goals soon hopefully!
Financial goals: I am excited because we maintained our budget this month. Even with extra spending for tires! Overall, we made progress this year but many of these will remain on the 2014 goal list!
- Pay off Lawn mower by March 2014, so no interest is charged. Made the triple payment! 7/9 months goal met!
- Pay off all outstanding debt except the mortgage by June– Obviously this goal was not met.
- Emergency fund to $2000– No progress again. 4/12 months goal met. This will become a major goal in 2014. However, I plan to reduce the goal each month but increase the final goal.
- Maintain a budget using a form of the envelope system -This is working for us! I continue to make adjustments as to where the amounts are kept and how but overall I am counting this as goal met and will be discontinuing it!
- Groceries: Spend $600 or less a month $460 spent for the month in groceries! Overall 10/12 for the year.
- Gas- Goal Met!! 100% for the time period that I tracked this 7 months! I will leave this for accountability with any remaining to be placed in the Auto fund!
Blogging: Goal: 15 per month: This is post number 15 for the month with at least one additional post planned! 5/12 for the year. Definitely staying a goal!
Devotions: Goal is 5 a week Goal Met! 100% for the year!
Weight: Goal to exercise 3x a week and to be down to 150 by December by losing around 4 # a month This has been the hardest goal for me. I only achieved it 1 out of 12 months! Much thinking to do regarding this…
Progress is occurring but it seems that I am taking 2 steps forward and one step back. I am going to continue with a monthly update of goals so that I can stay accountable! My plan is to publish new goal in the next post!