New week, new MM wins/losses? Week of 3-20

[sadlebred]

Let's start a new one!

[chpmnk1015]

L: this week has been stupidly expensive.. my son had a growth spurt...doesn't fit into anything.. so just ordered socks, underwear, bathing suits, shorts... tomorrow we tackle shirts and swim shirts.. daughter is trying on bathing suits now and will prob need some clothes

W: I went for lunch w friends and they paid for my slice of pizza... I was purposefully being thrifty but still...

[midwestmama]

W: I had a $25 gift card and used that to pay for part of our groceries this week. With the gc, the bill was $100 for what will last most of the week. I need to pick up a few things today, but should cost less than $25.

L: I found out that my company is requiring employees who had been WFH (leaders could decide what was appropriate for their teams until now, my leader was fine with me WFH unless there were meetings that needed to be in person, which was maybe once a week at most), so that will start costing us more in gas, probably $20-$25 per week. We have until mid-May for the change to go into effect, so at least the cost is delayed for a little while.

[Pom]

W: Our electric was way low this month, $77. We don't use a ton, do laundry 2-3 loads a week and have replaced most of the old, non efficient appliances from the 80s and 90s that came with our house, in the last 6 months. I am hoping we can keep this up! We have also tried to be more cognizant of eliminating food waste. We've been eating or freezing extra food. Eating stuff in the freezer and pantry. Just in general, having a low spend March. Mr. P is building a new composting and hot box? area to start his plants in the greenhouse and only spent $8. So, that's a win. Right now, we are on target to hit our lowest spend month in two years. We needed a break after a year and a half of construction.

L: The hinge on the screen of my HP laptop broke and the screen is separating so I don't think I can keep it indefinitely like I'd hoped. I will park it and use it as a desktop after we back it up, but I have all our family business stuff on it (H doesn't have a home computer either) and so, I can't risk not being able to use it. We also haven't gotten the bad news about our taxes yet from the accountant. She had them 8 weeks and I am waiting on pins and needles because we had some large to us capital gains last year. Ugh. We will pay and get over it, I just want to know the numbers.

[ssmjlm]

W: I bought our new umbrella and base with saved up amazon points from our prime cc. It's no longer our primary card, so we're working to spend the points on things that we need for the pool.

L: I realized that there are different shopping portals for my cap one card. One is just like rakuten except I'm stuck with some sort of gift card to then spend and the other is statement credit. I did some googling trying to figure out what was going on and realized they have like 3 different programs. It's not a huge deal, but dang, why make it confusing. I make just go back to Rakuten as my default unless I can get a higher percentage somewhere else.

[Roc A Bee]

W: we completed our taxes and they were accepted

L: im tired of thinking about money. I have been saving aggressively and thinking about every purchase. I make enough money to not be like this, but I’ve been trying to save up for some trips this summer/fall and with the prices of food/everything going up, I feel like I’m thinking about every dollar. It’s nearly obsessive.

[expectantsteelerfan]

L: We need to replace our roof. The first estimate that we got from the company we had used at our last house and were familiar and comfortable with and has the best reputation in our town came back at $26,500, which was way higher than we expected (we were thinking about $20,000 based on what our neighbors on each side told us when they both got theirs done last summer).

W: We got a few more estimates and found another company that had several recs from our local mom fb page that I felt at least ok about that came in at $19,500, so we are going with them. Still a huge expense, but at least what we were expecting.

[doxies]

Mar 22, 2023 13:47:05 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

L: I realized that there are different shopping portals for my cap one card. One is just like rakuten except I'm stuck with some sort of gift card to then spend and the other is statement credit. I did some googling trying to figure out what was going on and realized they have like 3 different programs. It's not a huge deal, but dang, why make it confusing. I make just go back to Rakuten as my default unless I can get a higher percentage somewhere else.

Thank you! Yes! I'm still trying to figure this out. I really just want the statement credits and just recently discovered it. But I have to remember to log in to capital one first and see if there is an offer for that retailer. Then the shopping thing popped up, so I signed in to that thinking I wouldn't have to log in to capital one first and it was nice that it remembered to check for me, but now I get those reward bucks instead. I don't want to have to remember to use those. Why would they have multiple programs with similar names that all work differently? 

[mae0111]

W: My electric bill was also much lower than expected. I have no idea why.

W: I cleaned out my purse and found 3 check that I'd forgotten about, including a Rakuten check from Christmas. I stopped the Paypal deposits after being repeatedly hacked so now I get physical checks, but I forget about them.

W/L: Solar panels were installed this week. We purchased them, so it's a significant cash layout, but lots of rebates, tax credits, and hopefully significant savings with our electric bill going forward. They're not functioning yet because one part is on backorder.

L: Our dog is killing us. Prescription diet after several rounds of expensive tests, and another vet visit yesterday for two different ear infections requiring two different medications - Med A for left ear and Med B for right ear.

[kadams767]

L: I realized this week that my crazy high grocery bills are not only inflation related, but somewhat self-inflicted. Apparently the Covid-era shortages have turned me into a stockpiler. Brought to you by the 3 UNOPENED jars of almond butter in my cupboard right now, after I bought one this week since the opened jar was running low. At $6/jar, times doing the same thing with multiple different items that are all over $5 each, I'm starting to see why I can't seem to keep the grocery bill to a more reasonable amount (for only two people).

Going to try and make a conscious effort to use some of this stuff up in the upcoming weeks and month and not buy quite so much.

[niq]

L: I feel like we're just spending money everywhere. Kids, house, travel, Math Team ... oy.

W: I made it through the PTA auction without impulse buying something useless and expensive. It was real close for a minute there!

[sadlebred]

Sorry to post and run the other day!

W: I've been saving a lot of money not going anywhere the last 2 weeks since I've had COVID and pneumonia. I met my max OOP for health insurance a few weeks ago*, so I haven't paid for the Urgent Care visits, doctors visit, or all the prescriptions for being sick.

L: I did spend $150 at the plant nursery on 2 plants to replace ones that died when it was 9 degrees for 3 days here over Christmas. Georgia does not do that cold! I've done a little online shopping for things I don't exactly need the last 2 weeks.

*It's only $1500, and I usually meet it in Q1.

[chpmnk1015]

In Baltimore for a tourney so spending too much money on hotel, gas, etc. But small w...I brought instant oatmeal and had that for breakfast and lunch. Dd had cup o noodles for lunch.. saving where we can..

[wildrice]

W: My H got a promotion and around a 30% raise, plus his bonus is going to be paid this week. His bonus is only a few grand so not a significant portion of our HHI, but it's still exciting since neither of us have ever had a bonus before.

L: We paid over $250 for our hotel when we travel to Pittsburgh this coming weekend to watch a hockey game. I can't believe that that's average for hotels these days - so expensive! We also booked 3 nights in Ocean City MD this summer, which was a fairly reasonable price for the area/season but still not cheap and a hit to the budget for this month.

[niq]

W: I stopped paying for spin/yoga studio workouts willy nilly and move more exercise to my "home" gym where the group classes are free. It's not quite the same -- the spin classes are less intense and don't have stats, the yoga classes aren't in a hot yoga studio -- but saving money is good.