A Year of Less

Um, where to begin?  I have so many thoughts about this past month’s “low-spend” experiment.

I honestly went into this month believing that it’d be a great month that would allow me to “catch up” a bit and sock away some spending money.  Surely if I spent more cautiously (and didn’t have any major holidays to pay for) I would be left with oodles and oodles of extra money to toss around.  In reality I realize there is extra money to toss around, but we spend it before we realize it’s there.  😛

Another thing I have realized is that as inconvenient as it might be, I really need to do two transactions when I get groceries at Target or Walmart (at the same time as non-groceries) because I am bad at remembering to split the transactions in Mint.com and then I have the program telling me I spent $1800 on groceries when I know I didn’t and that a lot of it was home improvement, toiletries, personal care, clothes, maintenance, medical, etc. supplies.

Categories where we were pretty much on target:

gas
groceries
kids activities

Categories where we definitely went over:

fast food (really, this should be ZERO)
dining out (it was about double what I want it to be, but we did have a birthday!)
snacks/treats

All in all, while I didn’t acomplish everything I’d hoped for, I did realize that we’ve got areas we can trim (even cut) without really feeling a pinch.  Our goal this year is to save 1/3 of our take-home income monthly while putting $1000/mo torward our student loans, while not sacrificing on educational spending and activities for the kids.  We’re moving in the right direction!! 😀

Two year car registration renewal for hubby…$115.  🙂

Smog check…$27

Target – $200ish

We really needed hampers!  $80 of it (plus tax) was hampers.

And then some milk and produce and snacks.

Most of the hampers were on sale online for $5.25 but rang up for $15 in store.  I bought four of those and they are now price-matching their site, so I’m going to try to get a price adjustment, which would save about $40.  I had to have these hampers though…they are definitely in the “will change my life” category.  😉

I spent about $40 on books and some marketing templates…notably got Nourishing Traditions…which I’m loving!

Groceries: $200

I guess we gotta eat!  It’s more expensive sticking with primarily organic, grass-fed, pastured, etc.  Next month I’m getting some things from Azure Standard since we now have a nearby drop-point.  The organic, pastured, cultured butter is $3.50 a pound while I’m paying $2.50 a pound for conventional.  There are some really great prices!

Jerky Direct order and distributor sign up….$15.

What can I say?  I love good jerky and they carry grass-fed, organic with no nasty chemicals, additives or preservatives.  I figured if I only use my membership to order for our family, I’ll be doing better than buying the HFCS. MSG-laden stuff I usually break down and eat!