Low spending month- Week 2
This is week 2 of our low spending month and I am going to be honest…it is not going well. We are having a great month. Life is not stressful. But we are spending more then either of us would like. None of these were must have expenses, but let’s see where we are. Last week if you remember I detailed how we spent $1,859 here. Not a great job, but how does it compare to this week?
So how is it going in week 2?
Groceries- $410 – This is double what we spent last week. What happened!? Well we had dinner guests over Saturday night and Sunday night. I also planned a nice Mother’s day brunch at home on Sunday morning. Beyond that, I bought 6 bottles of wine to get us stocked for a couple of months. Not great, but if we had gone out to dinner with friends or for Mother’s day our expenses would have been more.
Restaurants- $85 – This is $500 less then last week. I can’t believe we had spent $600 in restaurants the week before. That is crazy. So total we spent approximately $500 this week compared to $800 last week on food. Thank goodness I am a high earner and not get beat up by this expense. Still it is embarrassing.
Shopping- $460 – Compared to $625 last week. So a little better. The big expense here was a brand new vacuum. We had a Dyson for the last 5 years and it is great. However, recently the extendable arm that lets you get things in crevices broke. I tried to fix it with no luck. So instead I went to Costco and bought a new Dyson. It cost $330. I am going for quality here as we were really happy with the last vacuum. As a pet owner, and now the father of a toddler, a good vacuum is clutch. I am going to sell the old Dyson on Craigslist as the vacuum portion still works and it will likely fetch $50. So all in all not a bad loss.
Other- $90 – This was miscellaneous items like gas, parking meters, and upcoming travel expenses.
The grand total for the week is approximately $1,045. An improvement compared to the $1,859 I spent last week. The goal is to get this down even further so stay tuned in for next weeks update.
Tracking always makes me spend less, even if I beat myself up a little along the way! Those expenditures (especially food!) seem so necessary in the moment, and then I regret them when I tally them all up! 🙂 I love your total transparency about your spending–thanks!!!
I definitely beat myself up as I go along on some of my purchases. Still I think it is good to monitor it and make sure what is coming in is more then what is going out. Thanks for checking out the post!
It’s refreshing to see you track your spending every week. There’s room for improvement, but tracking is the first important step. Keep up the great work!
We track it regularly, but yes there is lot’s of room for improvement!
Hey, great job monitoring your spending! Don’t beat yourself up too much. 🙂 Way to go for cooking a brunch at home! I’m not sure if it’s your thing, but I started drinking Bota Box wine instead of bottles, and it’s saved me a lot of money on my wine budget.
We used to do a lot of Bota Box wine. It is actually pretty good. Now we go to Costco and buy the $10 bottles. We also are drinking less wine. Savings all around!