We actually went 4 weeks with only spending $10. We mostly spent the money on milk, butter, and eggs. Actually we still had $2.08 left at the end of the month so we went to the D.I. and bought a nice bread pan and left the month with 8 cents! We are quite proud of ourselves for keeping to the budget this time. Many other budgets have failed. But we agree we learned some wonderful lessons.
1. We rediscovered the value of a dollar. When we shopping on Feb. 1st, we stuck to the list and found ourselves not getting items we used to get, because we were unwilling to pay for it at that price.
2. We also learned how to be more inventive with our cooking. Instead of going out and buying ingredients we didn't have, we made do with what we did have. Which is great to help use up some food storage that we might not have used.
So what now? Well we are just going to take the lessons that we learned and form a new budget. We are thinking we don't need to spend more $10 a week. We figure if we could go a whole month with $10, we should be able to not spend more than that in a week. And we are not going to buy any new items if we have the same of that item, just not as appealing. For example, we won't buy any more juice until we finish all of our other juice mixes that we might not like as much. I am also starting to look for great deals and coupons that will help with us spending as much money. Yesterday we bought $30 worth of groceries for $5. Granted we wouldn't have bought most of the items regularly, but we got such a good deal on things we would get that the other items were practically free!
Why am I telling you this? Because YOU can do it! (If you have sufficient food storage) It may not be for $10, but something that makes sense for you. And both Jacob and I agree that the more people we tell about our weird budgets the more we have to follow them!
This is great!! Michael and didn't really have any kind of budget until last summer when we moved to our new apartment. Then we really broke everything down and figured out exactly what we could spend in the different areas that we needed. It's amazing what you can do without. And it's also amazing how much you can start saving when you cut back in other areas. One thing that we do (which you might be doing, too) is use cash for everything we spend. That way we CAN'T go over!
ReplyDeleteI meant Michael and *I*. :)
ReplyDeletegood job! we used to be pretty creative about budgets and now that were not students and we actually have money to spend it's so hard!! and on top of it all i just want to go to disneyland!!
ReplyDeleteThat's crazy! I'm assuming the $10 can't possibly include mortgage/rent, utilities, gasoline - things like that? What about toiletries like toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo? Laundry detergent, paper towels, toilet paper, diapers? I'm very frugal but there's no way I could live on $10 a week, just for groceries, just for myself!
ReplyDelete