**Week 4** January Freeze

[closertofine]

I totally forgot to post today bc I was off from school. I just finished grocery shopping and picked up the third illustrated edition of Harry Potter, despite already owning 5 various copies of the text, and thought to myself,"ugh, I'm going to have to confess to this in the thread." My kids and I just read the first one, have the second, and they've asked about the third, so I consider it money well spent;)

How are you all doing??

[melmel48]

I went off track and bought a pizza yesterday. Other than that I am still doing alright.

[minzy]

You’ll get no grief from me for the Harry Potter spending! I’m reading book one for the first time with my older daughter this week, too.

Money wise, this week was pretty good; again, I think most of the money we spent was on food, a lot of it on sale.

Carbonwise, new this week:
- I dropped a batch of my clothes off at a charity.
- We cut up some stained clothes for rags, my younger daughter loved cutting and then seeing her stuff being used in a different way.
- We recycled some old plastic bags at our grocery store (they get stuck in the bailers so can’t be recycled with the rest of our household stuff).
- I carpooled with a friend and talked to her about consumption, and she texted me the next day that she had reached for a paper towel, but thought of me, and grabbed a washcloth instead. (Woohoo!)
- I’ve talked about consumption tweaks with other friends in person and on another friend’s Facebook page this week.
- I toggled to a different screen on my car’s dashboard, so I’m now tracking the instant mpg stats, and I’m challenging myself to increase my mpg per trip by coasting more. My husband researched electric cars more this week and he signed me up for updates for a new type of one coming out later this year.
- My husband is helping challenge me on some things, like my weekend newspaper, but I am conflicted because I love reading it in hard copy paper format, I want to support journalism and am not sure I’d use it as much online, and it helps employ someone to deliver it. TBD.
- I checked out freecycle.org, offerup, zerowastehome.com/tips, and in person browsed a food co-op and talked about it with my older daughter (she now routinely checks location of origin on produce).
- I dropped something off by running it (5 miles round trip) to its destination rather than driving.
- I weighed our weekly trash again (up 3 to 23 pounds this week, probably because we cleaned some junk out of our younger daughter’s room, but we’re still way under the American average I’ve heard quoted of 4.5 lbs/per person/per day). I will say weighing what goes out has made me much more conscious of what comes in.
- I reviewed our quarterly water bill, and we had used many more gallons than before (but my shorter showers have not been in effect for that long, so hopefully next quarter is lower). I will say we’re only paying about a penny for two gallons, so unfortunately there’s not a huge financial incentive to conserve useage, but that doesn’t include water heating costs, and I’m still going to try to have that number down next time anyway.
- I turned the hot water heater down a second time since I didn’t notice any difference in temp from last week.
- I bought larger shampoo and conditioner bottles at Costco - 38 oz vs my current 10 oz. Way cheaper per ounce and way less total packaging, that’s a no brainer.

[bostonmichelle]

We've been doing pretty good. We ate out a bit more than I wanted last weekend but it was my birthday and I didn't feel like cooking. We're traveling to see family starting tomorrow until Monday so hopefully not too much eating out. We have a lot of meals planned at various houses. I need to buy DD some pj's in the next size up but that should be it for clothing, I can never find good PJ's now that she's older at used clothing stores.

[covergirl82]

The end of last week was bad. I ordered a pair of suede booties and two cardigans from Zulily and spent about $100 after tax and shipping (although I did get $4.50 in cash back from Ebates). Our dress code has loosened up a bit, and I need another pair of shoes for work. (And I'm a little particular about buying leather shoes because they tend to last longer.) We went to lunch for my dad's birthday on Saturday, and DH and I paid, but usually my sister comes too and she helps pay for our parents' meals, but she didn't come this time due to weather. (I did have a coupon, so at least that saved $4.) I also didn't sell anything on the FB yard sale site, so no extra income.

I do need to buy DD's "big" birthday gift (an AG doll) later this week, but that is planned for. I would like to try and sell some things on the FB yard sale yet this week.

[aspentosh]

Outside of booking our Ireland lodging, we've kept it nice and budget friendly.

For food (eating out and groceries combined) we are at least $150 lower than normal. Last week we only ate out once (besides DD's birthday dinner at Great Wolf Lodge). That is HUGE. This week is even starting out well because I cooked yesterday even though H didn't get home until 6pm. I feel the swing of it changing and I like that I don't just want to rush out and get take out.

For clothing we are holding strong. Only purchase this month was made on Friday because H's belt broke so he needed a new one. It was $18. Nothing for DD or myself!

Unfortunately food, decorations, and activities for DD's friends and family party on Sunday ended up being closer to $150 (hoped to be around $100) but we have a ton of leftovers so I guess it'll offset our grocery budget this week.

In the purging- I've gotten my nightstand, makeup, and closet all purged. Listed a few things and sold a bunch already. Need to list the rest and then donate what doesn't sell within a week. Starting to have H do the same with his clothes and then will move on to DD's closet since she always picks out the same 10 outfits or so.

[gt7301b]

We were almost spot on the budget for our travel over the weekend.

Grocery shopping was good and we have $150 left for the month. We've done pretty well on the eating out budget cause most of the food was paid for on our trip. We've used gift cards other times we went out. I have one more bonus card that expires this month that I plan to use when we need something quick. We have a $165 Costco cash card that should be coming in ~ 4 weeks, so hopefully I can minimize the Costco purchases till then.

[minionkevin]

Stayed on budget for groceries.
It’s been too cold for me to bother getting out of the car or even open up the window to pick something up at a drive thru, so I haven’t gotten breakfast or lunch out.
My H took the kids to an ANW style kids gym yesterday and tickets were $15/kid but for $5/hour of intense play leading to a 2.5 hour nap for each of them, it was worth it.
We ate from the freezer last night.
I placed an order from Gobbl and they sent something that H is highly allergic to, despite my choosing something different, and they refunded me + gave me additional credit making next week’s dinners nearly free. They also redirected the box so I didn’t have to have the contents in my house, or worry about disposing them.
Kid2 has become addicted to PB&J so yay for him loving something super cheap 😂

[maloney]

We're still doing well. Does anyone know when Chase usually has the year end summaries available? We still don't have ours for 2018

[kermit]

Still doing pretty well. I ordered a few fitness related things from Amazon but it fits into my fun money category. I REALLY want to book a massage for Friday b/c I'm solo parenting all week but I didn't budget for it in YNAB. I have the money, but since I didn't budget for it I feel like I should wait until Feb. IDK. YNAB is a little messed up for this month anyway because I started on Jan. 8th so some stuff had already been taken out of the bank.

[raangoli]

Doing well and returned an item that got me $90. It was a "want" item and not a "need" so I wasn't sad about it, and loved seeing the credit on my personal Amex.

We had to spend some money for a birthday gift for my MIL and I bought a small gift for BB's birthday this week. We did eat out twice, but nothing extravagant and we stretched the food to cover four meals, so that helps.

[Poppy]

minzy yours are my favorite posts in these threads. You have so much energy and so many good ideas! You are inspiring me to refocus on reducing our impact.

[minzy]

Jan 22, 2019 21:42:33 GMT -5 Poppy said:

minzy yours are my favorite posts in these threads. You have so much energy and so many good ideas! You are inspiring me to refocus on reducing our impact.

Aw, yay! Thanks for saying that.

[xctsclrx]

So this week was okay. Even though I didn't meal prep I have been making more at dinner and saving it for the next day at lunch and making breakfast for myself the night before. Success on that front. Grocery bill was good. The only think I did this month that wasn't really planned for was soccer registration for DS and swim lessons for DS and DD.



ETA: Oh I forgot. I had to get a new battery for my car... that was a lovely surprise. Breaking down at daycare with hungry kids is not my idea of fun. 

[hurricanedrunk]

Things have been going pretty well. Pros- I've been logging & tracking everything successfully with YNAB. I had around $50 in returns this week from Christmas & those transactions haven't hit yet so I'm hoping I can figure out how that works in YNAB. Spending freeze is fully intact. It's my birthday at the end of the week and I am shocked that I haven't pulled the trigger on anything for myself (even with the 25% coupon from Lululemon!) Kept it on track with groceries.

Cons - Had an unexpected visit to the vet with my older dog but good news he is okay. The gift for H's godson was a lot more than planned.

[dellabear]

Ugh, it was a bit of a spendy day as I had to Uber to work due to the weather, then I bought lunch because I was in too much of a rush to make one. Also had to buy a gift for H’s assistant’s bday.

Then I can home and paid the bills and I’m pleasantly surprised with how much money I have left over. And next month’s credit card bill will be small too. Woot woot! My resolve is back.

[ellipses84]

closertofine The illustrated editions are so cool!

minzy I’m so impressed with everything you are doing and I’d love to see you share a separate post on everything you’ve done so more people on the board see it. I’m always raving to everyone about my local Buy Nothing Group, but aside from the sense of community and MM-ness of it, it has a positive impact on the environment. I love that I have a super close network to share items, so I’m not driving to the store to buy something I’ll use once and toss or only need once a year, and it encourages re-use of items that someone may normally throw away. Some examples are party decorations that have been passed around to multiple people, boxes/packing materials that someone might recycle after one use, or food that will expire before someone can eat it all.

[ellipses84]

We are doing really well. The only thing I paid for this week is gas, and I went to Costco even though there’s always a line because it’s the cheapest place around. I’m actually driving a lot less than I used to and don’t have to fill up very often. My car is due for its 25k mile checkup but I’ll push that expense to February, and get some other items fixed before the warranty expires. My miles are pretty low for having my car almost 3 years, and most of those miles are from the first year in our old city.

We extended our lease and I feel at peace with the decision. I just want to pay bills and save as much money as we can while we are here. There were some things around the house I wasn’t doing because I felt like we were in limbo about moving but now we will be here long enough to make it worth it. I’m also on a Marie Kondo kick and want to get rid of the stuff I was hanging into because we might use it in a different place.

I’m mostly looking forward to seeing how well we did with our grocery bills this month compared to past months.

[sadlebred]

-Grocery spending was within budget
-Eating out was less than normal. I have a weekly "eating out" budget. Being single sometimes you just don't want to cook for one, and I tend to stick to fast casual places or less expensive restaurants. Every few months I'll go somewhere "nice".
-I did make one Amazon purchase of $20. I needed a new seat pack for one of my bicycles.
-I sold one of my mountain bikes. This is good but makes me sad. A friend's 11 year old that loves to ride if very happy, though. The money goes to start the "buy my next bike" savings account.
-I did some more purging and have a couple of other things to sell. I listed things that didn't sell locally on ebay.
-I got a pair of short rain boots from Athleta free using rewards certificates. I needed these to replace a pair that is 10 years old & has no tread left on the sole.
-No other extraneous spending.
-My team's bike clothing sponsor repaired two cycling jerseys for me rather than me having to buy new ones (they shipped back to me this week). This saves about $150.

[aspentosh]

Other than the new belt for H and party stuff for DD's party we're still doing ok.

Bought some stuff for a local food pantry so that was about $75.
H and DD had a "daddy daughter day" and went to a local trampoline park ($0 since we have an annual pass), had lunch ($21), saw a movie ($0 since we had two free tickets).
We booked our last AirBnB for Ireland, so those expenses are done.

Hoping to finish off the week without a big grocery store trip (will need fruit and likely some other school snacks) but if we can keep that to around $25 we'll be $200 lower than we normally are for food/restaurants.

Started purging DD's clothes and made about $75 with that. I keep it in Paypal to buy her next season's clothes, but since she's fairly set up for that I will just let it sit.

[just]

Jan 22, 2019 0:59:42 GMT -5 minzy said:

- I bought larger shampoo and conditioner bottles at Costco - 38 oz vs my current 10 oz. Way cheaper per ounce and way less total packaging, that’s a no brainer.

I'm sure you already do this since you're way ahead of me in this stuff - but if they're not already, I put shampoo, conditioner and shower gel into bottles with a pump. It's just the two of us, but we see a real extension in the life of these products when they weren't in free pour bottles. We were much less likely to overuse.

ETA: We didn't buy the bottles - reused old ones from shampoos that did have pumps.

[ellipses84]

I spent $150 on groceries at Costco this weekend, which puts us a little over where I wanted to be for our grocery budget this month, but it’s better than a lot of months and should carry us halfway through February except for some quick trips to replenish perishables. I almost panicked when I checked mint because it showed it really high, but for some reason DH’s account was showing duplicates of all of his purchases. Looking back on our history, we spent way less on groceries in November/December but a lot more in September/October. This month is where I’d like to be every month.

[sometimesrunner]

I started YNAB and so far I’m really enjoying it! I think it will really help me curb my frivolous spending. This is the third week in a row H and I have meal planned. We usually do great for two weeks, then eat out for two weeks, and go back to meal planning. It’s a vicious cycle. I’m cautiously optimistic that we’re going to stick with it long term.