Time for a New Budget
Our personal budget runs from 1st February to 31st January. It used to run for a calendar year but I always had trouble trying to get a new budget and tracking book happening at the same time as Christmas, New Year and Summer Holidays. Since DH’s farm budget runs from 1st Feb - 31st Jan we thought we’d trial the same timeline for our personal budget.
I think so far this has worked for us.
Unfortunately my tracking fell in a bit of a hole over January. With one thing and another I got behind and never really caught up.
The GOOD thing about this is that January is our final month in the budget year rather than the first like it used to be. So any overspending that ocurred will come out of what surplus we had generated during the previous 11 months.
I’ve decided not to try and catch up but to consider January as kind of a “month off” from carefully tracking our spending. It does mean we spent a little more than perhaps we would have otherwise. But I’m hoping a little “break” will also help us stick more closely to budget for the remainder of the year. Time will tell.
The good news for January is that I ended up spending around $250 on groceries for the month. With 5 Wednesdays (meaning 5 x $100), that allows $50 for the overspent amount in December PLUS $200 toward the 1/2 cow I purchased. I’m still hovering just under $100 a week average for my grocery spending. Yah!!!! That’s 13 months now. 
My goal for February is to keep grocery spending under $50 per week which would give me another $200 spare toward the cost of the cow. Time will tell whether or not that is a reasonable goal. I’ll let you know how I go……
As for the rest of the years budget. Well, the figures are done but the tracking book is running slightly behind schedule so I’ll have to make that a top priority (AFTER DD’s birthday party which is tomorrow).
I’m kind of looking forward to this year. With the mortgage done and dusted, we’ve added back in a little bit more this year which should make things a little more comfortable. In good timing too as Leighton’s shoes and clothing are started to cost us a little more.
My BIG project this year is saving for a CARAVAN!!!!! It seems like such a GOOD reason not to spend if you ask me.
I’d also like to save some money for tall boys for 2 of the kids. Those cheap plastic drawers work okay when they have smaller sizes of clothing but as they grow, so does the amount of fabric per item of clothing. So a bigger set of drawers is really a must.
As always there seem to be plenty of places to spend our money. 
As you may well know, I LOVE new beginnings. And the start of a new budget is as good a “new beginning” as any. I love my fresh new exercise book, empty of spending and full of promise for the year to come.
Similar Posts:
- Grocery Tracking
- In Shock
- Reducing the Grocery Budget: Non Food Items
- Reducing the Grocery Budget : Budgets & Tracking
- Happy Bloggity Birthday to Us!!!!
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You are so inspiring. I’d love to know more about how you manage your spending. I assume you grow some of your own veges, but what else do you have in place? Veges only make up a tiny part of my grocery-spending. Everything just seems so expensive, even without those little luxuries we all love.
Keep up the fantastic effort, and good luck with the caravan-saving! Definitely a worthy goal!
Thanks Tracey. My apologies for not being able to remember this, but have you been reading long? Last year I started to write a series on reducing the grocery budget. There are some links in my sidebar to the posts in that series. I intend to resume writing that soon. Won’t be tomorrow but fingers crossed, next Friday.
You’re right, things are going up and to be perfectly honest, I keep expecting my spending to increase but so far it hasn’t (phew! lucky me). The vegie garden is certainly helping in that regard though.
Oh well done for still coming in under $100! I need to update on how I am doing… not under $100 yet, but the year has only just begun! Does “done and dusted” mean you are mortgage free? That is fantastic!
Looking forward to seeing more posts about grocery savings,
Saving for a caravan is a great idea - you can come and visit us
lv,
Joy
I too have actually started to keep track of my spending for 2008 and Feb 1 is my kick off date. This could be highly entertaining to see if I am able to stick to a budget — your 100$/week grocery is inspiring, especially considering you have more than 1 mouth to feed! If you can do it for 5 mouths than I should be able to use that as a benchmark for just me and the cat. We’ll see. Granted you have a veggie garden and hens (?) Don’t have that here
Will keep you posted!
Cheers,
Maggie
Joy - indeed the year has only just begun! Mostly I seem to be finding staying under $100 is getting easier rather than harder so stick with it!!! Every dollar you save still counts too.
Yes, we paid out our mortgage. Some through being rather frugal and paying extra and some through selling a couple of investments to lower our overall debt level after some rough years on the farm. It alters our long-term plans a little but it’s still nice to know the house is paid for.
Maggie - remember that a budget can need to be a little bit flexible, especially at first as you’re adjusting to what different categories really cost you. Tracking is the best way to save money though! And makes a realistic budget in the future much easier to set. Yes we do have a vegie garden and hens (although the hens we currently have haven’t started laying yet - fingers crossed it’ll be any day now). Definitely keep us posted. I love hearing how others are going with this kind of thing.
I can’t wait to get my girls out of disposable nappies. They add $50 a fortnight to my shopping bills.
You thinking of an onsite caravan or one to tow behind you for holidays? I worked for the CIA (Caravan Industry Australia) Victorian division for 5 years and if you are looking for the towing kind of van I can highly recommend going to their caravan shows to check out the different types available. Might even be able to swing you free tix to the show at Caulfield if you want to travel to Melbourne.
A caravan is a GREAT reason not to spend!!! Good work on getting the grocery spending down so low as well
OH I am off to find your posts on the grocery budget.. I thought we did well at around $400 a month… but I’d love to know how you do it better and with your growing kids!
Ligthening,
The moment of truth…I did the grocery shopping this afternoon. Note to self NEVER go for groceries in the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday. Go before 9 am and you have the store to yourself, go after lunch and you’re fighting the hungry hoards.
So how did I do? I plan to write a more detail synopsis on my blog later today, but for the moment, you can be the first to know…I had budgeted $150 CND for 2 weeks worth of groceries, which is $167.09 AUD. That works out to 75$CND/week or $83.54 AUD/ week. And yes, for one person. Plus Buddy the cat.
I did really well I think….$151.71…that includes the taxi fare home
Buddy’s things were about 13$, $9.00 were non-food products, and some items will undoubtedly end up in the donation bag for the Food Bank — our local Food Bank recently experienced a fire and lost 33 TONS of food. I also try to buy organic, whole wheat, brown rice, low-in fat items. The 1 piece of ‘junk food’ was an organic chocolate bar.
One final thought…I’d been living off of my stockpile for the last month so lots of items were purchased to replace those that were used. Needless to say, I wont be going hungry! The goal for the next shopping trip is to aim for 60$ CND/week or 66.83$ AUD/week. Time will tell!
Maggie - well done!!!! KNOWING what you’re spending is such an important step in this whole process. Keep at it. Sometimes it takes a while to see the fruits of your efforts but if you keep at it, it will definitely happen. And quite possibly keep happening. It has so far with me. Thanks for sharing your progress.
Kate - I think there’s always a new tip that can be learnt. So many ideas out there! $400 a month is definitely good. I know I could cut ours more (because we still have treats etc) but right now I feel we have a nice balance.
Cat - absolutely!!! I always find it easier not to spend when I have a REASON. Especially a fun one like that.
Marita - I always kept nappies separate from my groceries (in terms of tracking). Everyone does things differently. They certainly are expensive. Unfortunately the money from nappies starts to go on sports, more expensive clothing and more food…… at least it has for me!!! Although I do still have one in Dry Nites (again, not counted in my grocery budget). As for the caravan - pity you weren’t in SA as we are going to that caravan show. We know which van we want and have a good price - just want to check to make sure nothing new has come out that we like better before actually signing on the dotted line.