HELLO from what will be— for a little while —a regular feature of this blog, which is a Monday post where I whine about money. YOU ARE WELCOME.
My goal is to get a better handle on what I am actually spending in 3 tricky categories: groceries, Target/household stuff, and weekly impulse buys. I kicked this endeavor off last week with a no-spend week, and I am continuing my frugality kick this week (Owala released a special edition glow-in-the-dark water bottle, and I didn’t even click on it, you guys). **
New this week: Ben is joining in the fun and tracking his expenses, too. (Yes, we share our bank accounts, but we are both stupid bad about checking in on them EVEN THOUGH WE HAVE AN APP).
Groceries: I got a ton of comments on my previous budget post about how groceries are not part of a no-spend week. I agree because, I mean, we gotta eat. BUT ALSO-- this is a HUGE and really amorphous spending category, and it seems to be the biggest thing between us and tidy budget boxes on a spreadsheet. We are very all-or-nothing people when it comes to spending money. We either keep neat track of everything OR we just spend without even blinking an eye. And when categories get messy, we just start spending and stop caring.
Household: MOST household stuff comes from Costco-- and we still have it, so I haven't been lately--OR from Amazon subscribe and save, which I never count in weekly spending because it's a subscription.** So, paper towels, toilet paper, ziploc bags face wash, deodorant, body lotion, Cereve, exfoliating foot balm, etc etc etc JUST SHOW UP. But then! There are things I buy at Target every week like household cleaners and seasonal Mrs. Meyers soaps (at least one thing runs out every week-- last week was Magic Erasers; this week I am out of LimeAway for the showers and Pledge, etc), some specialty snacks that are cheaper in bulk there and we don't eat fast enough for Costco sizes (technically grocery? This is why I think TARGET is its own line), random grooming products that I see are low when I clean bathrooms, laundry stuff because Costco doesn't have our faves. Just like groceries, I do a large weekly order and then pop in for more as needed-- as you can imagine, this gets SUPER EXPENSIVE especially when I throw in random makeup items or clothes for the girls, etc etc etc. Tracking the Target/house category over time should also help me figure out how much is actually going out the door there, too.
(The etc etc etcs in the above paragraph are THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS A MONTH, I am pretty sure, and that's precisely what I am trying to get a better handle on).
Random surprises: Last Monday, we spent $130 on dishwasher repair (**shakes fist at universe**), and it is good, for once, to actually keep track of these things (welcome to adulthood; you're ALMOST FIFTY) (also the dishwasher is suddenly in WORSE SHAPE than before it was fixed, so we will probably be spending more soon **shakes both fists at universe like the guy in Caps for Sale**). We know that things like Coop's bday party, an appliance breaking, an extracurricular expense, etc, (there is that pesky ETC AGAIN) crop up every single month, so tracking those is also helpful when we are thinking about projected spending. I paid for our holiday card photo shoot last week, randomly— stuff like that!
Those of you who are used to paying attention to your money will be like DUH, LADY, but neither one of us is the person you would choose in your marriage -- or in Monopoly-- to be in charge of the bank. So TEAM WORK, amiright?
Impulse buys: I mean. Listen. This is the ONE PLACE we have been able to stop spending. Does it help? WHO KNOWS. Just this past week, I did not buy a new Owala color drop, the Clinique gift with purchase at Macy’s, Lulu studio pants for Dorothy when another mom told me they’ll hem them at the store, these super cute silver Mary Jane’s from Target, or coffee at the dorm Starbucks when I was observing classes. SO MAYBE? But! Not buying is not the same as SAVING.
**Subscriptions: Ok. I have a shampoo and conditioner subscription that comes every 4-8 weeks depending on when I need it, a moisturizer subscription that comes every 10 weeks, Book of the Month that is billed monthly (but I have the option of paying yearly, and this is maybe what I should do for bookkeeping simplicity), and Audible that’s billed monthly. Plus! We get a monthly Amazon subscribe and save order that always has paper towels and toilet paper and also has a rotating cast of other random stuff from this one kind of tea I like some months to quarterly bulk toothpaste. How would you account for these? Just record them when they hit the bank account? Figure that you are spending x amount of money per week for them? Give them their own category? Lump them in with other monthly stuff like streaming platform subscriptions and not weekly spending? Ben and I argued about this for awhile and didn’t reach a conclusion that makes sense to both of us. I think he thinks most of the stuff is stupid and I should just cancel it, but I am not going to do that and think the subscriptions are better because they save time and a little money and/or are things I really use (the books). Neither of us is satisfied with how they “count” on a spreadsheet. How do you account for things like this? (I could buy hers shampoo and conditioner at Target, for example, but it is $10 cheaper to just have it show up at my door. If I bought it at Target, I would track it as a POS purchase, so I guess account for the delivery the same way?)
Apropos of nothing, some random pics.
Dollhouse turned bookshelf in Dorothy’s room: (she is on the cusp of a room reno, but we are waiting for Minnie to outgrow her toddler bed)
I guess for subscriptions I would break it down by subscription category. Toilet paper would be a household expense but makeup/ toiletries would be in (this is my categorization) health and beauty.
ReplyDeleteI track my spending too and I'm always blown away by the grocery bill particularly.
Elisabeth just had a post about saving money!
I track my spending but I do not do it in extreme detail - like I do not go to the trouble of splitting my Target spending into categories. I mostly track spending (using Fidelity Full View now that the previous spending tracking ap went away at the end of the year last year) for observational purposes. We are very very lucky to live really really really below our means so we aren't changing our behavior or choices based on the spending data. So my thought is that you should figure out if this exercise is for observational purposes or because you want to change a behavior. If you want to change a behavior, then more details tracking would be helpeful. But observational might help you figure out ways to cut back. Like 10+ years ago, I had slipped into buying a latte nearly every day (because I was at a terrible job and it was a way i treated myself every day). I knew I was spending way too much on coffee so I made a firm rule of only buying 1 coffee out/week. And I have stuck to that ever since (with the exception of my 2020 pregnancy with Taco when I bought latte every day for the final trimester because it was a treat I could have on my gestational diabetes diet and dear Lord did I need a treat to get through the pandy pregnancy).
ReplyDeleteGOOD FRAME!!! Yes, this is observational with a goal of increasing savings/being less wasteful generally
Deletefor increasing savings, is it possible to automate it out of your pay rather than trying to do it from money left over after spending? the former tends to work better for me.
DeleteYes— this is good— I think we do this but then also have all these aspirations of leftovers LOL
DeleteWe are much the same as you, which is not the greatest. We were lucky with stock options around the time we got married and then we had Angus so we got out at a really good time, and that's been a lifesaver. The past few years with university and rent costs have been a bit ouchy, AND ALSO I felt like we were saving so much money by not going anywhere during the pandemic, but apparently that was not quite the case? It is SO EASY to spend money on stupid stuff, so I think what you're doing is super smart, but yeah, feeding all those kids is never going to be cheap. I think the subscriptions that save money and your sanity by not letting those things run out are a great idea, but would be tough to track.
ReplyDeleteIt made total sense to me last week when you responded to my comment by saying you aren't necessarily trying to spend LESS, at this moment, but you are trying to figure out what Normal Cost of Living is, and I am now super curious about that for my family.
ReplyDeleteTarget "extra stops" are so expensive. This morning I spent $65 because I went there for more magnesium and while I was there decided to buy birthday cards (which are SO EXPENSIVE) and some additional gym clothes for my kid. Bam. $65.
I feel like there are so many ways to divvy up a budget, but when you factor in all the subscriptions, maybe it's easiest just to look at an entire year rather than going month by month? I don't know. That's a long time of tracking without acting, but maybe that's okay.
Also, GO YOU for not buying those things! I feel that so much -- like, asceticism as a means of saving. Whenever I exercise self-control like that, I tend to text my husband so I get the little dopamine hit of praise he gives me, LOL.
(Currently, I have been self-controlling my way out of buying the magical face cream you mentioned a million years ago that I am purposely not remembering the name of because I think it was around $300. Did I then spend $130 on an eye cream? Yes. But I have not spent the $300!) (I am still thinking about it, though.)
if you go to trader joe's, they have the cheapest cards and they are cute! but if you don't usually go to trader joe's, don't add a stop just for this because you'll find other fun stuff to buy and wind up spending more than you save (or maybe that's just me, lol).
DeleteMy head is spinning thinking of how to classify all the spending. My dad is an accountant - his work title was actually controller, and let's just say that FIT. He knew where every dollar went. I do NOT, and if he knew that his head would explode. But! I am very thrifty and only buy things when we run out. I almost never go to Target. I buy stuff at Costco and the grocery store. I do use Amazon, but typically that's reserved for Curly's hair products - cray cray $$$, and random stuff like vitamins for me or specific WD-40 for a garage door, etc.
ReplyDeleteGood luck figuring it all out. Spreadsheets give me hives. One more reason that I should never have been a business major.
SO much interesting stuff in this post. We budget by category no matter where it's from/how it's procured. So soap via amazon or soap via target is "household goods". (Yes sometimes i let things slide like if i buy cleaners at publix with the groceries I'll leave that in groceries, but in general). I am very good at tracking things (we use YNAB and then an excel sheet for net worth calcs) but I do very much enjoy spending. Not in the same way as you guys I don't think - our two big drains are more like "yes, let's take this slightly ridiculous vacation" or (admittedly very, very large part of our budget) private school. we do have a google sheet where we have all of our subscriptions listed so we can decide if we still want them.
ReplyDeleteoh! and the only way I know to save $ on groceries is to go to Trader Joe's. Usually can get what we need there for $100-150 less than regular grocery store.
ReplyDeleteI used to track our budget and every dollar had a purpose. I had a "miscellaneous" category for things like household goods and subscribe and save items. However, as time went on, I realized I just kept chucking Walmart as food and Target as miscellaneous regardless of what I bought. And do meals out count as food or entertainment? So much for details! And then we started paying for colleges so it didn't matter what we saved - it just went to the schools. ;)
ReplyDeleteI think as long as you observe what you are spending, you'll figure out where you can cut back. I would also suggest you watch for food waste - the things that get lost in the back of the fridge, the extra you make that no one eats, the food no one really liked. Making smaller meals you use up can be thrifty if you're not good about using leftovers.
Good luck figuring it out!
I have given up on tracking things exactly. Yes, sometimes I buy Liquid Plumbr and Swiffer at the grocery store and it just gets labelled under groceries instead of household. I just do the best I can. If I had a bunch of subscriptions, I'd just create a category called subscriptions and be done with it.
ReplyDeleteYou know how I avoid expensive trips to Target? I don't go to Target. LOL. I just looked on my spreadsheet and I've spent $4 at Target in 2024 for some St. Patrick's Day stickers. For me that's really the thing. The only stores I regularly go to are Costco and Woodman's, so I don't do a ton of extraneous shopping and everything else is carefully considered. But also maybe I'm doing this adulting correctly.