Lightening Online

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If you’re anything like me, grocery shopping has become a budgetters nightmare!

Bit like the cost of living in general eh?

So, I’m feeling particularly thankful for “free food” right now.

Even if I am up to my armpits in tomatoes.

I’m busy trying to freeze as many as I can to use throughout the year.  It should really help our budget.

Recently, some friends of ours gave us some pears from their tree.

Beautiful, juicy pears.

I feel so thankful as our trees are not at the production stage yet (and our poor pear tree is looking rather sick at the moment).

There are too many to eat before they go squishy so I’ve also been trying to blanche and freeze a few serves of those.

Then on Saturday, I had to go into town for a couple of things.  I rarely shop on a Saturday.  Add on to the fact that it was a Saturday of a long week and I got a big score in the bakery section of our supermarket.

Our supermarket rarely marks things down and when they do things are either already out of date or they’re only marked down a small amount.

So to walk out with half a dozen packets of cheese & bacon rolls for 99c, as well as 3 packets of pita bread and 3 bags of other rolls, all for 99c (instead of the usual $4-$5) was wonderful.  The kids were in 7th heaven.  Things like cheese and bacon rolls are a rare treat around here at over $1 per roll.

All of this “help” with our food costs got me to thinking.

Last year we had a terrible “blow out” when it came to spending.  In all areas of our budget.

This year, I’ve been trying to do better.

And all of a sudden stuff happens that helps me out?

Is it coincidence?

I’ve had this happen before.

When we take care of our finances, we seem to be blessed in ways that help us to do so even more.

When we get slack and have a “don’t care” attitude, money seems to fly out the door even faster than before.

Is it just me or have others had a similar experience?

Have you noticed my lack of posting about our grocery budget of late? That’s never a good sign. LOL.

My March grocery budget pretty much went out the window due to extra spending for the Easter weekend. I was only $30 over budget but it also meant nothing was put aside for meat.

The April budget is going okay-ish but it’s looking like there won’t be much left at the end of this month either.

It’s funny to think that only a few short years ago I was spending $100 a week and now I’m struggling to stay under $150.

Of course, there is one very big difference between then and now (and I’m not talking about grocery price increases - although that is a factor).

I’m not very motivated to keep my spending down.

I go along with the attitude that we have plenty of room in the budget for this little thing or that little thing and before you know it… *poof* Money all spent.

I think it goes to show that the key ingredient in keeping the grocery budget down is EFFORT.

May’s budget might be a little better as I won’t have much time for grocery shopping so there’ll be plenty of “using what we have”. Then again, there’ll probably be a lot more convenience foods purchased too. Will be interesting to see how we go.

The hardest thing right now is I know the kinds of things I COULD do. Things like:

• Menu Plan (and include low cost meals more often or at least on a regular basis)
• Avoid Impulse Buying (write a shopping list and stick to it)
• Bake More Lunch Box Snacks (if I can just find out what the kids WILL eat - they’re getting fussier as they get older)
• Make My Own Yoghurt (I have everything I need other than a “roundtoit”)

The question is, will I do them?

There’s an interesting discussion happening on the Simple Savings forum (paid membership forum) regarding fundraising ideas.  I’m amazed at how many different ideas there are out there.  No doubt we’re all involved in one group or another that has a need to raise funds for various running costs or projects.

On Friday, I took on the role as President of our school Parents and Friends group (unintentionally I might add).  It’s a group I’ve only been involved with for a year so I’m not even 100% sure on the full role the group plays in the school.  However, one of the things it does do is raise funds to help with bits and pieces that aren’t covered in other funding (and there’s always plenty of those).

So, my question to all of you is:

What successful fundraising ideas have you been involved with or seen?

In particular, things that are reasonably simple (workload wise) with not too much outlay.  We’re not a huge school which puts some of the big fundraising ideas out of our reach.

Also, how many fundraisers does your school hold a year?

Do you think that is too many?  Too little?

I actually think our school could do with holding a few more but I don’t want to overdo it either.

Any other thoughts you have on the whole issue of fundraising I’d love for you to share.

Thanks for your help. :)  Oh, and wish me luck.  LOL.

Yippeee!!!!

I’ve been dreading it because spending has gotten so out of hand lately.

Which makes a new budget kind of “where do I start????”

And I would rather stick my head in the sand than try and face where all our money is going at the moment so that puts tracking right at the bottom of my “list of things to do” (or at the top of “things I’d rather poke my eye out than do”).

Anyway, yesterday I decided to bite the bullet and play around with some figures and see what happened.

A couple of the problems I was facing were:

1.  Medical expenses have risen and I have NO IDEA how much we might need in 2010 (depends on how Farmboy’s back goes and how many physio appointments he needs).

2.  Tracking has been too specific and once I get behind, it’s too much of a mess to sort out.

SO….

I went through and took out all the regular payments that come out of our account.  I was recording all of those each time they came out which was probably unnecessary given they’re a regular amount.

Then I worked out if I actually took out of the account any amounts that need to accumulate (like Christmas money) I wouldn’t need to track so carefully because you can’t spend what isn’t there.  I now have a monthly amount to transfer to our savings account.

I want to use cash for groceries, take away and pocket money.  I prefer weekly which is a pain as everything else is monthly but by using cash, I can get away with doing it this way (just converted my weekly amount to a yearly amount so I know how much I have left).

So I’m now down to all the bits and pieces like clothing, medical, school expenses etc etc etc.

I divided those into 2 categories:

1.  Essential - medical, clothing, school expenses, basic household maintenance etc.

2.  Non Essential - gifts, birthday parties, leisure, sport, kids activities etc.

Those things are the only things I’m going to actually “track” this year.  And by having them in 2 broad categories, I don’t have to “guess” how much each specific category is going to cost us.  I’m hoping to record enough information that if I need to know, I can go through and calculate how much specific categories ended up costing us through the year.  But, even if I don’t, tracking to this much detail is better than nothing!

It feels like a real load off to have gotten at least this far with it.

In fact, I’m quite excited and ready to see if this will actually “work” (it starts 1st Feb so have a few days to wait).

I will admit that most of the money I used to allocate to “savings”  is now being eaten up by increasing costs.  Our income is the same as it was 7 years ago but the cost of living has increased and my children have grown (so they eat more now LOL).  BUT, that was going toward our “big trip” and we’ve had that now so it’s not all bad.

One of these days I hope to actually work on accumulating some “savings”.

But for now, I’m happy that we at least have some kind of plan for 2010.

APRIL

Total spend for April was $515.25.  Just a little over my goal of $500 but not too bad considering extras bought for Easter (not Easter Eggs but extra food, hot cross buns etc).

That works out to an average of $103.05 per week.  I think my days of cracking under the $100 per week mark are well and truly gone.

Still, I’m pretty happy with that result and now have $84.75 to add to my BHAG total (an update on that coming soon….).

MAY

I’ve done an inventory of the freezer and we currently have around 30 or so meals of meat on hand.  I say “or so” because some “meals” actually stretch to 2 depending on what I do with them and how much we have leftover at times.

The plan for May is to spend as little on groceries as possible and use up as much as we have on hand as possible.

It will be a challenge because I find it very hard NOT to pick up meat when it’s on special.

I want to go away with as little food left here as possible, particularly in the fridge/freezer.  I’m not sure if I’ll leave them running and fill with cold water/ ice or whether I’ll actually turn them off while we’re away.

But the last thing we want to come home to is a freezer disaster so no meat is going to be left here, just in case.

Plans And Goals For May:

• Menu Plan!!!!  I’m currently working on a menu plan for the entire month to help use up what needs to be used up.
• Buy NO meat.  Zero.  Nilch.  Nada.  Let’s see if I can make myself not buy any meat for a whole month??????
• Keep spending under $50 a week.  With 4 shopping weeks in May, that should leave me with $400 out of my $600 budget to go towards my BHAG.  How awesome would that be????

Wish me luck as I find it incredibly hard NOT to buy food.

I have to admit that over the past few months, our spending has been a little out of control. Some of this is due to unforeseen medical circumstances but a lot of it is due to a lack of discipline when it comes to shopping.

I mean, let’s face it, shopping can be LOTS of fun. It’s even more fun when you’re not working to any sort of budget or tracking where the money is going.

Until the credit card bill comes.

The good news is that I’ve been aware that our income cannot sustain my level of spending in recent times.

The bad news is that I still had to find a way to undo the damage already done.

The good news is, we have money in savings.

The bad news is that money is supposed to be earmarked for the big trip.

(did you ever have to write one of those stories in Primary School “What good luck…, what bad luck…?”)

The good news is I’m managing to scrape enough money together so far that I haven’t had to dip into savings.

The bad news is, I’m still paying for spending in late January and throughout February (so essentially, we’re behind because I technically don’t have the funds to cover what I’ve spent on the credit cards since then).

The good news is, I should have the money to pay for those bills by the time the next credit card bill is due (another month’s time).

And so on it goes.

In an ideal world I probably should do away with using the credit card altogether. But it’s just SO convenient.

To change the subject a little:

It’s been over a month since I’ve updated my BHAG. So far, I haven’t had to delve into this money to cover my spending faux pars so we’ll continue on our merry little way and hope that I can sort out this over-spending while keeping my little “nest egg” intact.

Last Update Total (2/2/09) $2834.31

Amounts to be added:

Interest: $163.41

Simple Savings Affiliate payment: $11.00

Clean out of old handbag (cash from last year’s budget): $101.70

New Total: $3110.42

With 15 weeks to go (oh my!), I need to find around $125 a week on average to reach my goal.

I have started tracking my daily spending using the Simple Savings Diary. It’s a feature of the site offered to paid members that I only discovered recently.

While it doesn’t offer me quite as much detail as my old tracking system did, I’m finding it a simple way of keeping some kind of record. I get sent an email reminder each day as well which helps prompt me to keep it up to date. It’s so much simpler to enter figures if you’re doing it on a daily basis rather than allowing them to accumulate.

The other thing I like about it is that it has a section where you can make some reflections on the days spending and consider what the next day will bring. This is something that I’ve never really done in the past. I’ve budgetted and tracked but not necessarily reflected a lot on my spending habits.

It’ll be interesting to see if this has an impact after a while (and whether or not I stick with this system). It’s working well for me at the moment though.

Grocery Budget Update

As a follow up from my recent musings regarding our grocery budget, I have made a decision on what I’m going to do. I was thinking weekly, but something Kate said in her comment reminded me that I’ve always based my figures on monthly in the past.

So I’ve decided to budget $600 per month which is around $138 per week (so pretty much a middle ground between $130 and $150) . I’m using cash as a way of tracking it so it’ll be interesting to see what we actually spend after a few months of not tracking at all.

If I feel up to it, I’ll start working on bringing it down from there but for now I’m trying to accept the fact that I haven’t got the energy to focus too heavily on minimising the grocery spending.

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We’re now into the 3rd month of the year (although only the 2nd month for my “budgetting year”) and I’m yet to decide on our weekly grocery budget for the year. Fortunately so far (for February) I’ve spent less than $100 a week on groceries so there’s no real panic but it feels strange not to have a set “budget”.

Part of my problem is I’m torn between taking the “easy road” or the more “challenging” road.

The easy road would be $150 a week. It’s not excessively high and I can easily justify it given my children are growing and eating more and that I now have 3 at school and therefore it would be nice to have some room for those hideously expensive, yet very convenient, prepackaged lunch box snacks (at least some of the time). It would also be a way of “cheating” on my BHAG and leaving more room for savings - and therefore more to be put aside for our trip.

The more challenging road would be $130 a week. Given in 2007 we spent under $100 a week (all tracked and accounted for - so our actual “expenses” rather than simply a “budget”), $130 should still be reasonably comfortable.

I went up to $130 a week in 2008 due to rising grocery costs and the fact that I needed a break from the effort of being too frugal. I enjoyed my $100 a week challenge while I was doing it but it does take a lot more time and thinking to achieve that.

That extra $20 a week equates to just over $1000 over the course of the year. If I was budgetting and tracking properly, that could make quite a difference to our budget and overall savings for the year. The thing is, I’m not. I have NO budget for 2009 and no plans at this stage to even try and create one. Which means the $20 is likely to just get eaten up by some other spending anyway.

Mind you $50 a week (jumping from $100 to $150) is $2600 a year - OUCH!

It does feel kind of backwards for me not setting a budget but it’s a complicated year with our trip and all. It seemed like a good year to take a bit of a break from the figures. I’ll still work to keep our expenses down but with a lot of unknown health expenses cropping up lately, I’m finding it hard to put a figure to categories like I usually would.

What do you think?

$150 - easy road, feels a little bit extravagant but would allow for some bought lunch box snacks, few more expensive cuts of meat and some cash in hand savings for our trip.

$130 - feels more frugal. Might lead to $1000 in savings but then again, might not.

$100 - Nah, that would send me insane, even if I do believe I could do it if I wanted to!

I’d like to use cash for groceries so that I’m at least budgetting and tracking in this category (in a simple kind of way) and it would be good if I could make a start this Wednesday (being the first shopping day in March).  I just need your help and input in making a decision.

Can you believe that we’re already at the end of the first month of my BHAG? If time keeps flying this fast, the big trip will be here before we know it. It’s kind of hard to believe after more than a decade of planning and dreaming.

Anyway, onto my progress report for my BHAG (my goal to save $5000 in the final 8 months before our trip).

Additions since my last update:

Simple Savings affiliate payment $22

Grocery Surplus for November $203.85

Website Sponsorship $150

Which brings the total thus far to $745.53

If my calculations are correct, I needed $625 at this point to be on track. So, we’re going well so far.

One of the things I find most challenge when it comes to being frugal with groceries is finding the balance between money well spent and money wasted.

As many of you already know, I’m currently on a mission to make use of money we’ve already invested in food, so that it doesn’t go to waste.

While I’ve been menu planning to this effect, there is another aspect to this that I’m starting to look into.

In the past I have tended to purchase in bulk in order to save money. This might be purchasing a bulk number of items when at a good price or buying in a bulk size to get an overall cheaper “unit price”.

This works well when everything is going well.

It doesn’t work so well when the wheels fall off the wagon and stuff gets left languishing in the cupboard or freezer.

After Christmas I’m going to do an audit of what I have left and actually plan to make use of what we have. Right now life is starting to get busy and I need to be mindful of what I can and can’t manage right now. It’s also a little overwhelming right now because we really do have too much stuff on hand. Another 6 weeks of doing what I’ve done for the past 3 and we should see a little bit of a dent in that stuff.

However, there are a couple of things I already know I have way too much of:

1. Bread Mix

This comes in a large bag and I don’t usually make bread over the summer. I’m trying to take advantage of the cooler weather now to use this up. The kids are enjoying home made bread, particularly as it’s been a while since I’ve made any.

2. Milk Powder

When I’m making yoghurt on a regular basis, we go through milk powder quite quickly. This has gone by the by in recent times and I have quite a bit on hand that I picked up at a particularly good price. So, I’m going to focus on using as much of it up as possible in the coming weeks.

We don’t drink it but I do use it in cooking.

I’ll let you know how I go using these 2 items in the coming weeks.

LAST WEEK’S GROCERY SHOP

I ended up spending $84.55 in last weeks grocery shop. That’s the most I’ve spent since beginning this challenge. However, it was all “real” food (with the exception of toilet paper - we don’t usually eat that! ). I’m looking forward to the garden reaching a stage of supplementing our diets again as fruit and veg has become a large expense once again.

I currently have $203.85 saved in my “grocery surplus” fund which I’m going to transfer to our “holiday fund” and begin again with my $130 per week cash amount.

THIS WEEK’S MENU PLAN

I’m not feeling particularly creative this week so my menu plan is rather uninspiring but here it is:

Monday - Quiche (didn’t end up making one over the weekend).

This goes well with homemade potato wedges and I’ll make enough that DH and I can have some for lunches a couple of times through the week.

Tuesday - Spaghetti Bolognese

Like it or not, we have a lot of mince to get through as well as some frozen grated vegetables so I think this, along with tacos and lasagne is going to feature prominently for a while. The kids love it and it’s easy for them to eat so it works well as a family favourite.

Wednesday - Take Away

I have a hair appointment and then need to pick kids up from various places in town around 5.30 so we’ll take the easy option this night. It’ll be a hot chook, chips and salad so not too expensive as far as Take Aways go.

Thursday - Chops

The joys of being a sheep farmer. Plenty of chops. LOL.

Friday - Homemade Pizza

Saturday - Tacos

Sunday - Toasties

We like to go simple on a Sunday.

For what it’s worth, that’s where I’m at with groceries for this week.

I know some of you are joining me in the challenge to use up what food you’ve already paid for. Feel free to share how you’re going in the comments section below.