It's that time again! Here's a spending report on my four "focus areas" of 2018:

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​Groceries ($130.00): $90.52

We spent 75% of the grocery money this month. All this year, we've easily paid a lot less than I budgeted. On average, we've had $37.53 left over at the end of the month. And what we spend includes impulse buys, going over budget some weeks, etc. I think I may adjust this number to $100.00 per month, until further notice. That will make it more of a challenge and more fun for me. I would love to go back to the bare bones basics of "how to eat for $10.00 per week" and see if I can do any better than that.

The obvious answer for why we've got so much money left is that I'm budgeting for three, and only two of us are eating most of the food. When I set the budget, I wasn't sure if we'd need more than $20.00 per week (more food because I'm nursing still, more food because Baby eats solids, more convenience foods because I'm a busy parent, etc.). In all honesty, I think if we stayed away from junk food and impulse purchases we could keep it under $87.00/mo, which is $20.00 per week- a two-person budget. We won't be giving up impulse purchases any time soon, though, so I'll add an extra $13.00/mo. for wiggle room.

Things I did this month to save on groceries: I made a Youtube vlog compilation of how I use cooking skills and cheap pantry staples to prepare meals. The video shows a lot of "frugal accomplishments" I do on a regular basis. You can watch it below:

​I was shocked at the sheer amount of food available when I carefully followed the grocery list from The Housewife's Guide To Frugal Food. It's amazing how many different recipes you can make from basic ingredients like eggs, milk, meat, flour, potatoes, and vegetables. It does take creativity to prevent boredom, which is something I want to work on over the summer. 


Personal Care ($10.00): $7.27

'Twas the month of body wash! Hubs bought a two-pack of his favorite scent, and I bought a garage sale two-pack (uh... two different kinds) that will hopefully last us a very, very long time.

Things I did this month to cut expenses on personal care: we've continued to use up those little hotel toiletries. I'm so sick of coaxing conditioner out of those small bottles. It's crazy!!


Household Supplies ($25.00): $20.73

Things we bought in April: toilet bowl cleaner ($1.53), elastic ($0.97), laundry soap ($16.28- I bought enough to last five or six months) and permanent markers ($1.95).

Things I did this month to save on household supplies: I bought three silicone baking mats. These will hopefully eliminate the cost of parchment paper and wax paper. 


Clothing: $14.00

I bought a hat and scarf for myself at a garage sale ($1.00). The rest of the money I spent on Baby's 12-18 month clothing stash.


Robot Vacuum: $164.00

So... uh... I bought a robot vacuum. It's the best thing ever. This vacuum wasn't an expensive Roomba, but a cheaper brand that I will hopefully get to review on Youtube. The robot functions more like a sweeper, picking up little pieces of debris and dust in a random (but surprisingly thorough) way. It's not as good as a real vacuum or person sweeping, but it produces a relatively clean floor with almost no effort from me. It has a few drawbacks, like the fact that it just pushes around larger pieces of debris, and sometimes it gets stuck under furniture. But overall I have enjoyed this little appliance a lot, and I don't regret the purchase one bit.

We also spent quite a bit of money on gardening supplies; far more than I normally spend, but I'm trying to adjust my gardening habits to be more baby friendly and less time-intensive. Some things I bought were landscape fabric, seed starter pellets, orchid potting soil and flower bulbs. 

Since we've lived here, my goal was to slowly plant a few perennials every year to build up a relatively maintenance-free flower garden. So far I've planted lilies, roses, delphiniums, blazing stars, gladioli, and tuberose. To my delight, my mother-in-law and previous owners of the house put in plenty of iris, hyacinth, lilacs, peonies, daffodils, more roses, poppies and many others that we get to enjoy every year.


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I guess that's about all for this spending report! Hope you all had a good, frugal April as well!
Til next time,

-Bethany

Hello everyone! This is the part of the blog where you see how much I spent on 2018's "areas that need improvement."

Groceries: ($130.00) $80.51

We did FANTASTIC this month on groceries, mostly due to me "shopping" the pantry. I've made a Youtube video about this since my channel has been sadly lacking in grocery hauls. We only spent 62% of the allotted budget.

I purposely "overbudgeted" this year, not knowing how much food would be sufficient for a tiny person (and nursing mom). For the last three months, we've consistently spent less than 80% of the allotted amount. So far this year I have $118.17 extra dollars; I'm not sure if I should use this for new/upgraded kitchen tools or improved food (I'd like to buy more locally, especially local meats).


Personal Care: ($15.00) $0.00

Drum roll please... this month we spent NOTHING on personal care! Wowza! First off, we got two free tubes of toothpaste at Kroger with coupons. Second, I started using the stash of hotel toiletries that we've accumulated over the past few years. Third, I've been diligent in using the reusable flannel tissues I made for nose-blowing. I didn't realize how much TP we were wasting just to blow noses. We used up the last of the Cottonelle TP (wasteful stuff), and I figured out that a roll of Scott will last a whole week! At $0.50 a roll, I'll only need to earmark $2.50-$3.00 per month for toilet paper. Our $10.00 pack from last month will last through May.


Household: ($25.00) $8.32

This month we bought a bottle of wood glue ($4.54) and $3.78 worth of thrift store kitchen items, including some containers for flour and sugar, plus a new (used) garlic mincer. Total spent was only 33% of the monthly budget, but I know I will use the extra $16.00 later in the year, probably on a large purchase.


Clothing: $0.50

I paid $0.50 for a pair of 2T leggings for Baby Girl. I bought them in hopes that the larger size would fit over her cloth diaper. I do like the way they fit, except the legs are way too long. I might make some alterations to the pants, so the extra length is less visible. I've made her three pairs of Maxaloones (special cloth diaper pants), but by the time you pay for fabric and a pattern, you could buy over 20 pairs of thrift store leggings, and not have to spend hours at the sewing machine.

I've spent a significant portion of our clothing budget on outfit solutions that will work with Baby's cloth diapers. The best solution I've found is to have a thinner diaper (Alva pocket diaper with one microfiber and one hemp insert) or use a onesie extender (made for free with a hand-me-down onesie) with a thicker diaper. Then I can put her either in a jumper or leggings.  We tried baby leg warmers, but her little thighs were too fat, and the warmers slowly slid down her legs during the day.

I've been eyeing some new nursing tops on Amazon but decided to put off the purchase until later. I also patched four or five pairs of jeans for Hubs and I. For Easter I wore my black funeral/wedding dress, dressed up with a pair of black high heels and a black velvet fascinator that I pulled out of storage. Hubs wore some nice jeans and a button-down shirt. Baby Girl wore a spring-like jumper over a pink long-sleeve onesie. No new Easter clothes here, although I considered buying Baby a new dress.

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Overall, we had a great month: I spent $81.17 less than was budgeted! I'm amazed at how setting a limit has made me more creative about stretching resources and aware of what I'm buying. The first month I kept track of clothing and personal care, I thought I'd never be able to make it work. I was breaking out in a sweat at how expensive toilet paper was, Baby girl didn't have enough cloth diaper friendly outfits, and I'd already spent 30% of my personal clothing allotment- in one month! But now I think my proposed budget IS reasonable. If I stick with it, we'll have saved over $450.00 on household supplies, personal care, and clothing. As far as food costs go, I MIGHT even be able to beat last year's total, if I follow my own advice from The Housewife's Guide to Frugal Food and The Housewife's Guide to Menu Planning. Lol!

Til next time,
-Bethany

Til next time,
-Bethany

Hey guys! I'm going to do a new monthly post here on the blog. There are a few spending areas I would like to work on this year, and I think some accountability would really help my resolve (and my memory... it's easy to forget goals sometimes). So, I'm going to do a monthly spending report for 1) groceries, 2) personal care, 3) household items and 4) clothing.

Here goes!


Groceries ($130.00): $90.18

We only spent 69% of our grocery budget this month! I managed to pull this off by eating from the freezer and pantry. We were also gone for a week in January and I skipped a shopping trip because we were sick. The money that I didn't spend will probably go toward bulk purchases later in the year.


Personal Care ($15.00): $23.97 

I went over in this category thanks to my fabulous Bath and Body Works haul. Did you know that B&BW has a semi-annual sale where many items are 75% off? Well, they do, and it definitely drew some dollars from my pocketbook. We also bought toilet paper this month.  I could have done better on the TP (we bought it at Home Depot), but I waited too long for a deal. We ended up paying full price at a not-cheap store.

I can see already that toilet paper might be my biggest challenge in this area. One roll costs about $0.60 and usually lasts at least four days. That means our toilet paper should cost about $5.00 per month. However, in January all three of us had runny noses from cold/ cold weather/ etc. I don't buy Kleenex, so we use toilet paper for tissues*. The sickness wiped out (no pun intended) a large amount of the toilet paper that I just bought. $15.00 budget minus $10.00 worth of toilet paper does not leave a lot left for buying other personal care items. In coming months I will keep an eye out for fantastic deals (as in, almost free) on Kleenex to keep handy in case of sickness. 

*I do sometimes use a handkerchief when I'm consistently blowing my nose. This saves money on TP, but some people think that handkerchiefs are gross. I can understand that.


Household Items ($25.00): $21.52

Last month I bought trash bags and laundry soap. For laundry soap, I bought our usual large container of Xtra from Walmart, and a smaller bottle of Tandil from Aldi. I need to do some detailed math to see if the Tandil is a better deal than Xtra. Normally I just make our own laundry detergent (and I still use that for clothing), but Baby's cloth diapers require a stronger detergent. The Xtra works great for her diapers- I just wanted to experiment and see if the Aldi brand was a better deal.


Clothing ($225.00/year): $50.93

I bought a nursing shirt last month for $19.99. I got Baby Girl a super-cute sun hat for vacation in Cancun ($14.99), plus five sets of baby leg warmers ($15.95) to wear with her cloth diapers. I probably could have made the sun hat, but would've had to buy a pattern (and probably only saved a few dollars unless I found a multi-sized pattern). Baby sewing patterns are definitely going to be on my thrift store/garage sale list this year. I'm thinking I could have made the leg warmers as well; either with old sweater sleeves or knitting them from scratch. However, now I do have some store bought leg warmers to use as patterns for future pairs.

One thing I did this month is make a "needed clothing" printable to use as a garage sale shopping list. Baby clothes are ABUNDANT and far cheaper at garage sales than at thrift stores. The cheapest you are going to find baby clothes, even on 50% off / $0.99 day, is $1.00 per item. Garage sale items are frequently $0.50, $0.25 or even less. The last three months taught me just how fast babies can grow. I want to make sure I have a whole wardrobe for her in 12- to 24-month sizes by the time our 2018 garage sale season is over, so I don't end up paying $2.00 or $3.00 per piece for stuff she will grow out of in a month or two.

So, that is my (selective) spending report for the month!

Until next time,
-Bethany