Grocery Spending - Update #5

It really isn't that bad. Honest. The only groceries I bought this week were for this month's family meal - I needed bread, milk and cream, and most expensively, maple syrup. Okay, I'll use the milk and cream for other things. And we only ate one loaf of the bread. And about half of the maple syrup. And... okay, okay. But still, really, if it wasn't for that meal, I wouldn't have had to do any shopping this week!

As for the stash, I've finally tallied up my seed purchases for this year.

Sigh.

How is it possible to spend this much money on seeds, year after year? I really have to get better at saving seed. This is ridiculous, and I still have to buy seed potatoes! Mind you, that tally includes some planting supplies, and shipping, and tax. Still - ouch!

Spending Feb. 4 - 10:

Non-stash:
Milk: $4.23
Cream: $3.03
Bread: $3.94
Maple syrup: $11.49

Stash:
Seeds & supplies: $225.98

Balance to date: -$42.37 for non-stash, -$455.93 for stash.

The balance keeps going in the wrong direction...

Grocery Spending - Update #4

I didn't want to do two updates back-to-back, but this puts me back on weekly schedule - well, some sort of schedule, anyhow!

This week's purchases included items for the family supper, but it's not too bad, even though I made chicken alfredo with garlic bread. I had all the ingredients for the sauce on hand, including the chicken, so all I had to buy was the pasta (on sale), bread and croutons for the salad.

The brand of coffee I drink was on sale last week, for just under $12/pound, down from the regular $16. I started keeping track at the beginning of the year, and realized I go through about 3 pounds a month (!!), and I'm down to only 3 pounds in the stash, so I stocked up. I'm good until the end of May now, and hopefully, it will go on sale again sometime before then. Or, I'll stop drinking coffee. Bwahahahahahahahhaa!!!


Spending Jan. 28 - Feb. 3:

Non-stash:
Pasta: $1.88
Croutons: $1.94
Bread: $3.94
Tea: $3.02
Coconut: $0.86 (I wanted unsweetened to try in a recipe)
Chips: $1.83 (I am bad - bulk food store fail)

Stash:
Coffee: $107.91

Balance to date: -$29.68 for non-stash, -$289.63 for stash.

Sigh.

Grocery Spending - Update #3

And herein starts the justifications - and the revisions.

My main goal for tracking (and blogging about) my grocery spending was to make myself start eating the food in the house, not just add more to the stash.

And so I set a dollar amount, that I thought was reasonable.

But then I ran out of things. Like brown sugar. And cocoa. And spices. And salt. And so I spent more than I had budgeted for.

It's not all bad, though. Even though I've gone over my arbitrary dollar amount (by a lot), I've been really good about actually eating from my stash.

So it's not a complete loss.

Of course, I want to keep this going, and I still want to track my spending (accountability, it's a good thing), but I don't want to post here week after week about how much further in the hole I'm getting. And really, the dollar amount is somewhat arbitrary...

On to the numbers:

Spending Jan. 21-27:

Non-stash:
Yeast: $3.79
Cocoa: $5.29
Coconut: $0.99 (For a recipe. Not a need, but hey - it was 99 cents!)
Brown Sugar: $2.17
Lemons: $3.00
Milk: $4.23
Sour Cream: $1.97
Cocoa: $6.99 (Mom knew I was out, saw a good price when she was out, and so, not knowing I had bought some, picked some up. It's all good - you can't have too much cocoa!)

Stash:
Beef: $240

Balance to date: -$46.21 for non-stash, -$262.04 for stash.

Now for the revisions:

I've looked again at how much I spend on "stash" foods, like locally-raised meat and eggs, fair-trade coffee and garden seeds, and realized the total is close to $1500 a year. So, I'm increasing my stash budget from $10 to $30/week. And on the same vein, to account for items like flour and sugar and spices, as well as milk and bread, I'm doubling my non-stash budget to $10/week.

And yes, I'm doing so retroactively. My challenge, my rules ;)

New balances: -$26.21 for non-stash, -$182.04 for stash. Still in the red, so I do need to work on that, but not as bad as before!

And really, $40 a week for a diet that includes non-CAFO meat? Not bad, not bad at all. Now, let's see if I can do better here on out...

Grocery Spending Update #2

I suck at this.

Really.

I cannot stick to a budget.

Sigh.

The stash isn't too bad - I knew I'd be buying pork this month to make sausage and put some away for pulled pork, so just over $40 for 30+ pounds of pork and associated fixings isn't bad at all.

But my non-stash spending...

Sigh.

Bread and potatoes - no problem. Salt and spice from the bulk food store - no problem. My "treat" of ravioli and tortellini (it was on sale!!), and two cans of hot chocolate - bad, bad, bad. And completely unnecessary. And yes, I'm back to buying hot chocolate mix - Dad likes a cup when he's over here working, and he doesn't like my homemade stuff :(

Spending Jan. 14-20:

Non-stash:
Pasta: $7.52
Bread: $1.97
Potatoes: $0.95
Hot Chocolate: $5.98
Salt: $1.83
Allspice: $0.40

Stash:
Pork: $38.19
Sausage Casings: $4.00

Balance to date: -$22.78 for non-stash, -$32.04 for stash.

I really suck at this. And the stash spending is going to take a HUGE hit this week...

Grocery Spending Update

Once the kitchen cabinets were installed, and I stared putting things away, I realized just how much food I had in the house. So I decided to do a small challenge: eat the food instead of buying more ;)

I decided to try to limit my spending to $5 a week, which would be enough for perishables like milk and bread. And so far, so...


Not so good. As of today, I'm $9 in the hole, not counting the 10 pounds of ground beef I bought.

Yes, I know, I know. I'm not supposed to be adding to my stash. But I did need ground beef - honest!

Thus, a small rule change. $5 a week for non-stash items, and $10 a week goes to the stash. This limit doesn't include my egg CSA, which was pre-paid, and also doesn't include non-food items (like bleach or vinegar used for cleaning).

I'm tempted to include my garden seed purchases this year under the stash column - after all, it is food spending!

One thing I have done is to look hard at what I am spending money on. The biggest single item was 4L vegetable oil ($5), but that should last for a while. The next biggest?

Pizza dough. Yeah, I know. Completely non-necessary! But I'm trying to limit my takeout meals and my biggest weakness is pizza. So I figured that if I made it a habit to make my own pizza once a week, I'd be saving all that money wasted on takeout 'za. Dough is only $1.49, after all... which doesn't sound bad at all, until you realize it's 30% of my weekly budget!

Which leads me to my next largest purchase: yeast. :)

Spending to date:

Non-stash:
Oil $4.97

Pizza dough $4.47 (1.49 x 3)
Pizza Sauce $1.18
Yeast $3.99
Mushrooms $1.76
Onions $1.88
Grape tomatoes (couldn't resist) $0.88

Stash:
Ground Beef $19.85

So, balance to date: $-9.13 for non-stash, $0.15 for stash.

Must. Do. Better!

Hello 2013!

Happy New Year!

Okay, now that that's out of the way...

So this is apparently the time and place to sum up 2012 and plan for 2013.

Yeah.

Whatever.

:)

The garden on New Year's Day. I still have kale, collards and leeks!

I did learn a few things in 2012, the biggest being that I can't do everything all at once. I can either have a fantastic vegetable garden, or I can renovate my house. I cannot do both at the same time - well I can, but not perfectly. Thus, my plans for 2013 are to focus more on the house. Now that the kitchen is done, I'm getting really annoyed at the mess in the rest of the house. But, I also have a budget to think about, so everything isn't getting done all at once. My plan is to focus on one room at a time - and hopefully I'll have a big chunk of the house done by the time spring rolls around!

And I'm going to post the plan here, in hopes that I'll actually follow through...

2013 House Goals:

January: Living room. The drywall is up, and the first two coats on the seams. I have to finish the seams and paint. I have the fabric for curtains, which I'll need to make, and of course, all the trim, except for the baseboards and door casing, which has to wait until the floor is installed.

February: Main bedroom. The drywall is done (and has been for an embarrassingly long time), so I need to do the seams, paint and make or buy curtains.

March: Spare room. Same as the main bedroom.

Once those walls are done, I can get the floors done, and then the rest of the trim. Which is the goal for the end of April, budget willing. I'm going with engineered wood in those rooms, and it's not cheap!

During that time, Dad will be working on tearing out the old main bathroom, and turning the back addition into a new bathroom, a laundry area, a furnace room and a pantry/storage/freezer/dog room. I'll be helping, of course, and there will be drywall seams and painting to do as well in those areas.

So, the main goal is to have all the major renos and the walls done by the end of May, and depending on finances, the floor and trim might get done as well.

And then...

Well, it all depends on money. Once the inside of the house is done, I can focus on the outside. A back deck, new siding, and re-vamp the front porch. Then flower beds! I'm not planning on getting it all done this year, but I do want to get the inside done. Four years is long enough!!

As for the garden and food...

You may not have noticed, but I'm not great at keeping up to date on the various challenges I've started ;)

I want to do better at that, and better at posting over all. I'm going to try to post every day. We'll see how it goes!

I need to find local sources for more of my food, and to figure out a meal plan that works for me. The goal for 2013 is to start buying local beef, and to try to find a source for pork. I also need to re-vamp my herb garden, and to try to grow more of my own spices as well as herbs. I'll talk more about this in other posts!

And, even though I said I'd do it this year, I want to plan for a winter garden this coming year. I do have a few things in the garden right now, but not as much as I could have. Hopefully I'll have more storage come next summer, and I need to step up my game on food preservation.

Since the budget is going to be tight (see renos above!), I need to really watch what I'm spending on food and on garden seeds. I plan on limiting my food budget to $5 a week for a while.  I know - it sounds crazy, but I have a house full of food, and I need to start eating it!

And of course, I have personal goals - the main being walking the dogs once a day, and hopefully losing some weight in the process!

So, a few "small" goals to get me though 2013! Let's see what this next trip around the sun brings!