This was a bit of a weird month, it felt like I didn’t do anything, go anywhere, or buy anything, but I somehow spent a ton of money?? Some of it is for future stuff, like travel tickets for while I’m home, but most of it is bills and food.
This was also one of the months when there were two student loan payments in one month thanks to the calendar, so there’s $600.
I have come to the decision that Hello Fresh is not it for trying to stick to a food budget. You spend $82.99 on a box of 6 meals or approximately $13.84 a serving. Which isn’t terrible, if you didn’t have another 15 meals to feed yourself (or 13 if like me you eat breakfast late on the weekends and then skip lunch) that you still have to buy groceries for. So I always end up spending about $80 a week at the grocery store for approximately $160 dollars a week on groceries. So that’s not including coffee out or if I don’t meal prep and buy lunch and then all of a sudden you’ve spent $900 to feed one person for a month. Which is absolute insanity. So I have skipped all of my Hello Fresh deliveries for September and am planning to spend $300 on grocery food in September. I am going home for ten days and will be eating out and stuff while I’m home so I will spend more than that on food in total, but for 20 days worth of groceries I’m thinking that about $300 should be plenty.
I also need to get back into the habit of only buying coffee once a week, that would bring my coffee spend down from about $85 to about $45-50, which is much more reasonable. I’m going to bring back that rule for while I am home, but while I am home (as in at my parents’) and on vacation, I plan to get coffee whenever the opportunity strikes and the urge is there. Especially while I am in Montreal with my friends.
Montana’s cat food has also gotten significantly more expensive. I bought enough for a few months, so I won’t need any of his wet food for a while, but I will need to leave a big bag of his dry good and get a big bag of litter to leave for the pet sitter. I also need to hire a pet sitter.
Other than food, I am honestly not sure what to cut our of my spending. I did do some shopping in August, I bought a new nap dress, a new phone case that was desperately needed, and a Harm Reduction t-shirt to support rural harm reduction sites in Saskatchewan (and to have a fun public health shirts to wear to work).
The one area I am pleased about is that I hit one of my financial goals this month. I finally have an emergency fund of $1000 saved up.
It’s funny, I’m feeling a bit about money as I am about my accidental weight loss. As I start to really save money and meet my financial goals, I am increasingly reluctant to spend it. Like I know that I am planning on spending money in September, to take advantage of being home and have access to shopping but I also constantly find myself saying, but if I don’t spend money then I can do this thing and this thing, and pay this thing. But I also need clothes to wear this fall and winter, and I want to have fun with my friends. How do people maintain this balancing act?
Laura
Thoughtful Millennial 