August, what a great month! It’s my birthday month, yeah Leo’s, it starts the slow trend toward cooler weather around here (it’s still supposed to be 92 today), and now we have school starting to add to the list for August since our oldest started kindergarten this year. How did all this affect our spending though? There were some minor upticks in spending due to kindergarten, life, and oh yes, the allure of a new grocery store. For the full report out and comparison spending chart read on.
Ahhh, another month and another budget update. Although budget is such a non-term around here, since it’s really more of a spending tracking update. Overall, the numbers look good though! No big surprises anywhere, which is always awesome. So, without further ado, here’s our July recap.
Well, another month has come and gone and we are now halfway through the year. So far tracking how our our “real” budget numbers compare to our anticipated Fully Funded Lifestyle Change costs we seem to be pretty close. We have been averaging $4035/month spending and that’s assuming no mortgage, which ends up being ~$48420/year needed. We like to add in a little slush/cushion to round up to $55k, which is what we are generally assuming our year to year costs to be and we’re right on track. Heck, we’re even under budget, which I will never complain about. So what were the big hits and little misses that we saw this month?Time to get into some details!
The painful wrap up of May. A lot of big rather unexpected expenses popped up, mostly in the form of auto related expenses. Although as a surprise, we did not dip into savings for these expenses and we still had $953.75 left over, Lol. I’ll highlight the big hitters, gloss over the little hitters and even more importantly, tell the story behind the really big expenses. Let’s start with the little stuff.
Hooray us, as it has been a nice and fairly uneventful month financially! Any questions? See you next month then! Kidding… Personally, it was a pretty exciting month though. Mr. SSC completed his first half-marathon, and Mrs. SSC is gearing up for a new job (hopefully, because so far only a verbal offer has been given, and the school seems completely bogged down in their bureaucratic hiring practice – but she is assured weekly a legit offer is on the way…). Only time will tell how that plays out, but is it an omen of disappointment and frustration that they’re that inefficient? Here are the highlights and how it all panned out.
We realized in September that our grocery bill had gotten a bit higher than we wanted. While we don’t do a detailed review/tracking of groceries each month we figured we would do one for October. This would allow us to see what the big spends were on, and if there was anything we could do to reign it in, or if this was the new standard. We also realized that we have 2 other months that we did this detailed tracking so we have some other months to compare it with. It’s amazing to see some things change dramatically and some items remain status quo. For instance, our $40/month yogurt tab does not seem to be going down because we all still eat a lot of yogurt.
I think the biggest thing we do to keep our grocery budgets low is make a list before we go to the store. We found when we go to any store without a list, we overbuy, and spending goes up. During the week, we add things to the list, and then we stick to the list. We usually make our big grocery trip on the weekend, and then sometimes mid-week for things like bananas or milk, but not staple items. We also are mindful of sales, but we don’t buy something if it isn’t something we usually purchase. Meat is usually low priced, but we almost exclusively buy red meat and pork when it’s on sale. Otherwise, it gets really expensive really quickly.
Charts are fun!
Most categories stayed in the same trend as our previous Oct 2014 analysis, and our January 2015 analysis. Some things seem high because we stock up due to being low/out of something, and some things seem anomalously low because we stocked up the month prior. Protein bars are the perfect example, with $33 spent last Oct. (stocking up due to sale), $0 spent in January (we were already stocked up) and $8 spent this month – average spend if you buy month to month and there isn’t a sale or reason to stock up.
Mrs. SSC loves using excel for tracking!
The big drop I noticed is coffee. I started buying green coffee beans off of Amazon and I just use a Whirly-Pop popcorn popper to roast the beans. Whereas before we were spending ~$8-$10/lb, now it is under $6/lb. We still buy some pre-ground coffee, but it’s only $2-$3/lb so it isn’t a big hitter on the budget.
The other 3 biggest things that jumped out to me immediately, were desserts/adult snacks, frozen prepared meals, and drink mix and juice. Last time the drink mix got high, I just started making tea with teabags, and you can see the difference in January 2015 is pretty big. Almost a $25/month savings which adds up to about $300/year. It falls into the paying for convenience category though. I drink about 1-2 pitchers (~1 gallon) of tea/lemonade or what not each day, and the kids like lemonade, so we give them watered down versions of whatever is made up. It still adds up over a month, so we’ll probably watch that.
Alcohol was higher this month. We did a Pumpkin beer tasting when the in-laws came in for a visit. This is usually only about $9 to make a sampler 6 pack of your own, but the selection was poor, so Mrs. SSC opted for 4 six packs at ~$8-$9 each. We also had the same tasting at a pumpkin carving hangout with some friends of ours since we had more than enough. As you can see usually alcohol is low on the bill. Frozen prepared meals are another thing that fluctuates as we get some frozen meals and other things that are easy for the kids. Weekends, we make a lot of food from scratch, and we save left overs for them when we make dinner, but not every night can be nice like that, so back to paying for convenience. The healthier options in those categories aren’t the cheapest either, so it’s a trade-off. When we enact our Lifestyle Change, there will probably be not much in this category as we’ll have time to get to do more cooking again.
Desserts/Adult snacks were pretty high this month as well. Between the layoff situation, and heightened anxiety, we realized we’re both comfort eaters to some degree. I know I eat more chips than I should, but chips and salsa or guacamole is just SO delicious! Mrs. SSC loves ice cream, and since Blue Bell was out of the stores due to listeria issues (they’re back, but limited flavors) Mrs. SSC found gelato as the only other same quality ice cream substitute but it’s kind of spendy.
Beyond that, cheese was a big drop, not because we had a lot, but we’re just not eating as much lately. We’re doing more baking, so baking supplies, eggs, and the like were a little higher. Surprisingly, “meat” was down. I guess we’ve been a lot better about getting meat on sale and that is reflected here. Mrs. SSC does the grocery shopping almost exclusively now, and I’ll watch the kids. It’s way easier this way for both of us. However, Mrs. SSC knows nothing about meat, except chicken and fish, as that is the only type of meat she eats. So… she will buy what she sees is on sale. It’s a bit of a gamble on my part though, so like on cooking shows, I get to see what’s in the mystery basket each week, and figure out how to cook whatever she bought. It’s been good in that I am learning lots of different cooking techniques that make cheaper cuts of meat tender and delicious and it also breaks me out of my culinary ruts. So I count that as a win on a lot of levels.
Let me know if you have tips or tricks you use to keep your grocery budget in check.
Recently the topic of a fall garden has come up around the SSC household. With the high temps starting to stay at/below 90 during the day, and night temps around 75 (time for a fire!) it got me thinking we should plant some stuff for the cooler weather. We keep talking about wanting to garden and grow more stuff as part of our Lifestyle Change, but we don’t do too much of that now. I figure now is the best time to get with it so we can iron out any bumps and what not before we go big with a garden. However, our success rate with getting anything edible from any plant isn’t exactly stellar. Is it due to our ungodly hot climate, our lack of green thumb, or possibly lack of diligence with taking care of the garden due to our schedule? I’m all for the fall garden, and have even agreed to scale it back a bit, but I’m having trouble getting Mrs. SSC on board due to our usual gardening adventures fails.
Our first “big garden” attempt down here was nothing short of a disaster. We’d decided to do a raised bed, with a garden system that made a 6’x6’ box separated into 4 squares. We then put our usual peppers in 2 squares, some squash in another square, and something else in the 4th square. The fact I can’t remember what it was should be a clue as to how successful it turned out. We were doing well with the garden even though it was as far away from the house as it could possibly be in our backyard. Then we went on vacation. Ever mindful, I set up a timer and watering system so it would get water while we were gone. I hooked up the sprinkler, ran it out to the garden, and even adjusted the flow and coverage of the sprinkler so as to be efficient. I was SO proud of myself.
When we returned home the scene looked like it was out of a plant horror movie. Some plants were dead – straight up dead, while the other plants looked droopy, wilted, and brown. Not dried up lack of water brown, but a weird brown, like a “death” brown. I thought I may have overwatered, but that couldn’t be the case. I checked the sprinkler and timer and they looked good too. Then I stepped into the spray of water and was scalded from my knee down to my flip flop covered foot!
Gah!!! Idiotic me didn’t think about how hot the water would get while it was sitting in ~50’ of garden hose stretched out across the yard, in the sun, ALL DAY, in the middle of Houston summer. Yep, I had managed to kill the garden with repeated scaldings over the course of a week. Side note – if you want to get rid of a certain patch of grass or weeds and don’t want to use chemicals this seems to be an effective method, as even the weeds were dead… We haven’t tried keeping anything alive since beyond our two pepper plants and the occasional tomato plants or herbs.
This guy’s about 6′ tall and flowering again!
This year I got one tomato before the heat cranked up and I calculated it cost me around $8. I’ve kept that plant alive and I’m hoping for a fall crop now that it’s cooler and it’s starting to flower again.
She’s a sad tomato…
However, the other one got decimated by some kind of bug. I went to water it and all of its leaves were gone. There were just little leafless nubs all over it. I brought it inside to try and resuscitate it, to no avail. Our pepper plants are still cranking out peppers though, and we do have a pineapple we started from a cutting earlier this summer that’s looking quite nice.
This guy seems happy as can be!
Now that it’s cooler, I proposed the Fall Garden! However, I want to only put up 2 squares, so it’s half the size. Also, I would put it on our back porch so it’s right next to the hose and in our daily view so we won’t forget about it. Plus, the kids seem like they could get excited about it. Our oldest transplanted a bean plant he started in daycare, and it got over 6’ tall and made a decent amount of beans. He really enjoyed that.
I was thinking of planting some cauliflower, but maybe they get too big for that small of an area. Maybe plant some root vegetables like turnips, carrots, or something along those lines, and maybe something leafy like Collard Greens or Bok Choy. I even proposed to fund it from the allowance, but was reminded my allowance is a bit tight currently, Oops…
I think our gardening fails are mainly due to our busy schedule, not being diligent with the garden, and having the plants out of sight. The high summer heat doesn’t help either, but I don’t want to make too many excuses. With the weather getting nicer, we’ve been spending more time out back, so we should be able to manage it way better. I really think the kids would like gardening too since our oldest liked seeing the bean plant get big and make beans he could eat. I think it’s worth giving it a shot and hoping they want to get more involved.
What are your thoughts? Should we start a fall garden? Thoughts on what we should try to grow – any advice is welcomed. Do you want to hear about more gardening fails? I have plenty!
Man, was this a rough month for the budget in the SSC household. As I’d teased last month, we were expecting a few overages due to the A/C repairs, new tires, new greyhound adoption and the like, but I wasn’t expecting the hits to keep rolling. Fortunately, there haven’t been any breakdowns, repairs, or otherwise costly expenses that have cropped up yet this month, and we’re almost a third of the way through it. A quick glance at the bar chart shows June (appropriately orange) topping the charts in almost every category except the stable ones like mortgage, car note, and home utilities. How did this all happen and where did the money go you wonder? Since we don’t have the usual “numbers” chart for this month (it will return in the July update and you can peruse it then) I’ll just tell you.
Ouch, June hurt!
Phone, tv, internet got hit with a $65/month increase due to 2 years’ worth of discounts finally running out. I called ATT, asking about any other ways to reduce our bill, and besides getting a 3 month $40 discount applied to our account, it was just lip service. I shopped around and 2 days later have our service switched and added bonus, NFL Sunday package is included for free this year! I count that as a win, since I’ll probably have to pony up for that one from my discretionary funds if we continue it in the future. Increased daycare costs – no clue. I’m guessing it’s a combo of short month in May, little longer month in June, and the difference was made up in June. Groceries were okay, trending a little higher than usual, but we’ve been on a “grocery spend watch” just to see if we can keep it steady.
Home repairs… Oh, home repairs…. Besides the A/C drip line getting clogged up (~$450), we also got 2 solar screens made for the bathroom windows (~$140) and it is now cool as can be in there, and not sauna like every day. We also had our wall mount A/C controller go out, so there was some added cost there. When we looked at replacing it with the same unit, we realized we could try the Nest for a little less (~$250). So far it’s been working great! The garage door springs also broke in this month, and that was another $440 to get them replaced. The car needed new tires, so I went a middle of the road option for that, but it was still ~$650 we didn’t want to spend.
The kids had their birthdays this past week, and we had a party. No, no, not some thousand dollar extravaganza with entertainers, balloon animals, and bounce houses. Oh wait, there was a bounce house, but upside, it was paid for over a year ago, and overall, not that pricey. Essentially we just had friends over and did snacks, drinks, and appetizer sort of food, beyond the cake and ice cream.
Both cakes came out nice!
I designed and decorated James’ cake, and Mrs. SSC did Marie’s.
James wanted a construction cake, so I built this one.
With the food and extra drinks, juice boxes and gifts (For our kids not those give away bags for the party, I just don’t get those) it was still ~$200 or so for entertaining.
The bigger kicker of the month was our shower in the master bathroom. The metal for the hinge on the door fatigued and split. When this happened the pin that rests on this tubular metal hinge now sat about ½” lower and started hanging up on the lower part of the door. Imagine any door you use dropping a half inch and you get the idea. After hours of scouring the internet and talking to 4 different shower companies, we found out that they don’t make replacement parts for the style of enclosure we had. Seriously, what a racket! None, no parts. They have to be connected to the mob somehow, but no, they just expect you to replace the WHOLE thing if something like a tubular hinge fatigues and splits. So, after getting 3 quotes all within $50 of each other, we got our shower replaced to the tune of $1350….. Ridiculous! Now you understand where the comment about fixing all the “custom everything” on the Living Big Sky show came from, as it was playing the night after we’d ordered our standard shower door replacement. Ugh…
Finally, we got the newest member of the family our new greyhound, Coffee!! Kidding, we went with Lola instead of her racing name “Rusteze”. She’s been great, but the adoption fee of $250 and the $200 vet checkup/heartworm and tick/flea medicine and some other costs added up to just over $500.
Happy and relaxing
Sound asleep!
So to recap, we’re about $3600 over budget this month. Fingers crossed that we don’t have the same string of spending in the next few months, but I see it trending back downward again.
How was your month?
Did you get any crazy unexpected bills,repairs, or new pets that threw your budget for a loop?
