Friday, January 13, 2017

Two week spending report


Two weeks in, almost. January has been cold (duh, right), icy, and busy. 

Yesterday little Abe SHOULD have had his first swimming lesson since summer. He and my husband went to the YMCA. Little Abe got all ready, changed, showered, they sat down at the pool and then someone told them that lessons were canceled because school had a snow day. I guess you could call it an ice day. Almost all the snow melted Wednesday and we'd had freezing rain all night. The whole world was covered in a VERY slick blanket of ice and so, No school. We didn't know school was canceled.

I'd bought a small toy for Abe Wednesday if swimming lessons went well Thursday. (My child is very shy with strangers) My husband gave him the toy even though lessons were canceled. Well, that was a waste of $6. Anyway, that's a long story to report $6.

The spending categories I record here are as follows:
  • Groceries 
  • Food out 
  • Pets
  • Stuff 
  • Toiletries
  • Clothing
  • Christmas
  • Gifts
  • Cleaning and house supplies
  • Garden


I think everything I spend money on fits nicely into these ten categories. I assign Christmas and Garden their own categories only because I'm interested in seeing where those two things end up each year. I guess you could call those special interests.  The only things I don't tally here are car expenses, educational expenses, and health expenses. Oh, and of course bills. Everything else I spend money on gets reported here. My husband's spending on himself is not included.

So far this month I've spent in the following five categories:

Food Groceries $164.20: an average of $12.63 a day
Pets $29.15: an average of $2.24 a day
Stuff $10: an average of 77 cents a day
Toiletries $24.93: an average of $1.92 a day
Cleaning and house supplies $44.93: an average of $3.46 a day

Average daily spending for 2017: $21.02

Looking at the short list of categories I'm happiest to report that there's been no spending in the food out category over the last thirteen days. No coffee shop coffee. No pizza (except homemade). No food or snacks out. That's always a fun accomplishment.

The other thing to note is high spending in toiletries and cleaning supplies. I have stocked up on some things this month but the stock up makes me so happy. Being the frugal gal I am there are some things I hate buying not on sale when they run out. Toilet paper (which I have not stocked up on yet) and laundry detergent are two of the biggest annoyances. Whenever I have to purchase either of those things full price because we've run out I get so beyond annoyed. I've gotten a pretty good stock pile of laundry detergent this month at a pretty great price. There won't be any full price last minute detergent buying here anytime soon.

A portion of the toiletries spending this month is face soap for my husband. He uses a certain kind/ brand and I never know when he's out (and don't think to randomly buy soap for him). Basically I almost always end up buying face soap for him full price. We now have four containers of it from a pretty good sale so I think he'll be set for awhile.

All in all, I'm really happy with this month's spending so far. Groceries is a tad bit high but we haven't eaten any food out. So I'm calling that a total win. Pets is right on track. Stocking up on toiletries and cleaning supplies. We've a free bag of dog food from finally hitting the buy 12 get 1 free deal. And there would be spending in the Christmas category but I  purchased $35 worth of stuff on clearance with an $11 store reward making it all free. Great way to start the year!

You know one thing that is kind of strange, despite inflation and adding a person to our family our average daily spending on food groceries has been pretty darn close to an average of $12 a day for over five years. Hmm, I guess I aptly named this blog oh so many years ago. Hehe!

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