What’s the one area of your budget...

[melmel48]

Definitely eating out/take out. I should keep track and have tried to many times... but I always give up. Perhaps May will be the month I keep track and June will be the month I try to lower the amount 

[keweenawlove]

Apr 19, 2021 16:26:00 GMT -5 brooke77 said:

Apr 19, 2021 13:37:55 GMT -5 mich1 said:

My Kindle downloads....

Since the pandemic started, my $30/mo habit has easily doubled , if not more (I refuse to check) and I am downloading more expensive books.

Is your library system good at all? I used to have a terrible Kindle habit too and it was my 2020 resolution to stop. I haven’t bought a book since then. There are so many Kindle books available to borrow through my library exchange. I am in a fairly big area though.

I've been doing this a ton too. I tend to be really sporadic with reading - sometimes I can finish a book in a few days and sometimes it's months. Figuring out to just check out a few and then put my Kindle on airplane mode was a game changer.

[mich1]

Apr 19, 2021 16:26:00 GMT -5 brooke77 said:

Apr 19, 2021 13:37:55 GMT -5 mich1 said:

My Kindle downloads....

Since the pandemic started, my $30/mo habit has easily doubled , if not more (I refuse to check) and I am downloading more expensive books.

Is your library system good at all? I used to have a terrible Kindle habit too and it was my 2020 resolution to stop. I haven’t bought a book since then. There are so many Kindle books available to borrow through my library exchange. I am in a fairly big area though.

I've not really looked, but I don't read all the books I download immediately.  I read through all genres, and alternate topics by how I feel.  So I don't really want to read under time restraints.

[mich1]

Apr 19, 2021 17:38:59 GMT -5 keweenawlove said:

Apr 19, 2021 16:26:00 GMT -5 brooke77 said:

Is your library system good at all? I used to have a terrible Kindle habit too and it was my 2020 resolution to stop. I haven’t bought a book since then. There are so many Kindle books available to borrow through my library exchange. I am in a fairly big area though.

I've been doing this a ton too. I tend to be really spastic with reading - sometimes I can finish a book in a few days and sometimes it's months. Figuring out to just check out a few and then put my Kindle on airplane mode was a game changer.

My Kindle lives in airplane mode until I do a bulk download while charging.  I download everything while charging it and put it back into airplane mode.  I had no idea how fast the WiFi ate battery until I was switching from one Kindle to my new one and doing a massive download.  

[ohgillian]

keweenawlove I hate saying this, but "spastic" is really....not a great word to use outside of its actual meaning. 

ETA removed the quote.

[keweenawlove]

Apr 20, 2021 10:42:51 GMT -5 ohgillian said:

keweenawlove I hate saying this, but "spastic" is really....not a great word to use outside of its actual meaning. 

ETA removed the quote.

Sorry, my autocorrect changed it from "sporadic". I edited the original post. Too much writing about cerebral palsy has messed with words my phone expects. 

[ohgillian]

keweenawlove Ha, no worries -- In addition to not being a great word (as you clearly know), it didn't make as much sense as sporadic anyway. I can delete my post if you want.  

[keweenawlove]

ohgillian no worries either way. The callout made sense with what was written

[pinkdutchtulips]

Food - groceries and eating out. DD has become quite the ace with DoorDash with me working in an office and her not wanting to use the stove/oven/microwave when i'm not home. Its the fees that are the killer w. food delivery services. 

I have reigned in the Target spending using drive up pick up which means i DO NOT go into the store which has cut down on the impulse buys and i don't take DD w/ me so there's nothing that she sticks in the cart. 

[iheartthe90s]

Could be better about?

Definitely food and Amazon. I never look at prices at the grocery store, we get take out a lot, and I frequently impulse shop on Amazon for books, movies, tv shows, toys and books for our kids, etc. It's not like I don't care that we're so sloppy about these things but I don't care enough to do anything about it, lol.

Don't want to be better about?

Travel is my biggest splurge and I know we spend a lot of money on it but I don't care. In fact, I'd spend more if my husband agreed, lol.

eta: Ditto to the streaming service problem too! We also have Hulu, Netflix, Disney +, HBO Max, Prime, Showtime, probably some others that I'm forgetting. The problem is, as soon as I think about canceling one, a new show pops up that I want to see. For instance, I was thinking about canceling Hulu but then saw that the Handmaid's Tale is coming back soon.

[shaynaatl]

Clothes, specifically loungewear. During quarantine life, we've spent a bunch on loungewear brands that we'd never even heard of pre-Covid (like Vuori). I value very soft fabrics and am willing to pay a premium for them.

[Susie]

I have trouble feeling badly about how much we spend on much of anything, when I feel like education dominates our budget so dramatically.  That's one of those #sorrynotsorry things.  

Between my law school SLs, H's law school SLs, and daycare for the kids (now daycare for one and camps/after care for the older one), omg, such a huge % of our budget.  

It often makes me feel like most other small choices don't matter much, lol

[Velar Fricative]

Things that are within our control to rein in but just don't are:

1) Groceries - We could shop more at the local Lidl (which I do from time to time and am always in awe of how cheap it ends up being), but we've been getting weekly deliveries from Fresh Direct for years and we just stuck with it (especially helpful during the pandemic!). 

2) Kids' clothes - I just never bothered to explore buying secondhand. I don't think I spend a ton on their clothes and don't really care about them looking cute or matchy or whatever, but whatever I spend especially on DD1 seems justifiable because DD2 wears her hand-me-downs, so I do focus on quality knowing I'd like it to last through two kids. 

For everything else, I've done a pretty good job reining in things I can control that aren't important to me, to the point where now I feel super strongly about keeping those costs low - I can't stand subscribing to redundant streaming or digital services anymore, for example. I'm rarely drinking alcohol anymore so that's gone down, but I have no problem upping my restaurant expenses now that I feel comfortable going to restaurants now and seeing friends again because that's important to me, etc. 

[dontlook]

Target. I buy everything there including food, booze, toiletries, and clothes for the kids. My monthly target budget is more than my mortgage by a lot and I still overspend. I just don’t care to try to be better. Drive up has been the worst thing ever for me bc I keep adding stuff to my cart and hit buy when I know I’m driving by target.

[simpsongal]

I’ll add house projects. That where our disposable income has gone for 9 years. But we bought “as is” so we sort of signed up for this. That said, we could have updated the whole house and then some with what we’ve spent, but have done $$$ updates since it’s our forever home. It’ll be awesome when it’s all updated in 3- 4 years...