Low spending month- Week 1
Ever since moving to Cali and buying a home we have been hemorrhaging money. It is not the fixed expenses like the mortgage, school loans, or utilities. It is the unexpected. In the last 6 months I replaced the sump pump and repaired the roof. Think ChaChing! or maybe No Whammies (remember Press your Luck?). Then there are the things I have chosen to do. Planting fruit trees, Buying a couch and a rug or two, and traveling. Tickets from the West Coast to the East Coast aren’t cheap. Not the frugal expenses of a FIRE wanna be.
There were months where are net spending was over our earnings by a few grand. This is a path to financial disaster. So my wife and I talked and decided to make May a low spending month. We were going to try reducing our costs.
So how is it going thus far?
- Shopping – $624 – Miscellaneous items and Amazon is always the big culprit. Jeff Bezos has secretly made it for all of us to spend money unwittingly.
- Groceries – $181 – Not bad. We try to keep this at $200 a week.
- Restaurants – $598 – Mother’s day early brunch plus a celebratory dinner for some friends
- Kids activities – $325
- Donations and gifts – $81
- Home maintenance/improvement – $50
So total is $1,859. This is not great. There were some one time expenses this month but we will have to drop our expenses in the up coming week to make up for this.
How did you spend $325 on one week in kids activities? I have two kids and don’t spend that much in a month.
I have to be brutally honest, your spending in one week is a bit under what we charge in a month, excluding the mortgage.
Junior Gym and Music together membership. We do not do daycare, so my wife takes him to regular classes. Basically one class a day. This is the problem with a lot of high earners. Make more spend more. I am sure it would be possible/easy to reduce expenses and this is why I am trying the no/low spend May, so that we can see where that money is going.
This is a great goal. Maybe tell everyone to think about an expense for 24 solid hours before you actually put down the money. It will be good to see how the month turns out. Keep us updated.
Tom @ HIP
That is actually a great idea. I am interested in seeing how it turns out too…but so far it is not turning out great!
I did see a Nintendo Switch (the new one) today at Target. I have been looking for it and it is sold out everywhere. So there I was staring at it and it took all I had to walk away. Alas, Zelda will have to wait.
Don’tcha just hate those little one-off expenses? Urgh! Keep you chin up and keep on truckin’!
They are killing me…particularly after buying our house! Thanks for the support!
There’s always those one-off expenses that don’t fit neatly into those budgeting categories. It’s great that you’re sharing your monthly expenses; it keeps you accountable.
Accountability and transparency! The motto for actually forcing change. Thanks for checking in today.
That’s ok, it’s only week one. Week two is another chance. Sometimes it’s hard to change habits.
So maybe it should be a low spending year! I have been able to break some habits like chewing my nails and drinking coke, but even those took some time. Spending is a different beast. I think if we did not own a home or have a kid it would be way easier, but then we would be missing out on a large part of life (the kid….not so much the home)!