No Buy May

[Siouxstone]

OMG! I was re-reading my post and I realized we are WAY PAST THE HALF-WAY MARK! Yippee! Keep up the good work everyone!

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

Mondays are always so busy for me I've taken to posting on Sundays. This month seems to be a lot less of a struggle, so far, than previous months. I'm just not feeling the need to shop so much.

The girls and I did decide to let them have their first sleepover on May 31/June 1 so that party may take the place in the budget of the Memorial day cookout. 15 screaming 7,8,9 and 10 year old girls, woo hoo . The stuff I do for my kids . I hope that will be no way near 200, just pizza, nail polish, dvd rentals, and popcorn . My DH is like, do I have to stay at the house that night? hah, yes!

Totals so far:

May 1: Books 18, Food 258.99
May 2: 26.72 CVS, 20.25 DH's shirts
May 3: 0
May 4: 20 photos (budgeted)
May 5: 0
May 6: 54.73 gas (I have a motorcycle license, I should seriously consider using that for work!)
May 7: 12.56 food, 28.94 shower gift, 32.04 teacher gift (had a parent not step up for a commitment and I wanted to make sure the teacher go her teacher appreciation gifts)
May 8: 96.13 food
May 9: 0
May 10: 0
May 11: 0 (Happy Mother's Day!)
May 12: 11 food
May 13: 0
May 14: 14.22 post office (sent off credit freeze applications via certified mail), 23 car wash (budgeted), 48/target (tights for recital and shorts for girls on clearance, oops.)
May 15: 0
May 16: 0
May 17: 0

Today will probably not be a zero day since I need to go get some gift certificates for coaches/teachers, and we're TOTALLY out of food, but I do have the gift budget that I haven't blown (yet). And I'm very proud to say that although my fingers and toes look like crap, I haven't blown my beauty budget yet .

Here's the overall budget categories and spending in them so far:

Food: 800 budgeted, 387.85 spent, 421 left (that's a first...)
2 Bookbags: 100 budgeted, 0 spent (still looking for that mythical LL Bean coupon), 100 left
Gifts: 100 budgeted, 121.20 spent (damn Target!) over 21.20
Recital Flowers: 20 budgeted, 20 spent, 0 left
Tennis Dinner: 50 budgeted, 13 spent (gift for captains comes out of this and I'm eating pasta at the dinner next tues ), 37 left
DH's shirts: 25 budgeted, 20 spent, 5 left
Beauty: 50 budgeted, 26.32 spent, 23.68 left
Car Maint: 25 budgeted, 23 spent, 2 left
Carpets: 150 budgeted, 0 spent (will probably have this done right before sleepover), 150 leftSoccer Photos: 20 budgeted/spent
Pets: 25 budgeted, 0 spent (that may become my target indiscretion category for this month ) 25 left
Cookout nee Sleepover: 200 budgeted, 0 spent, 200 left

So the only unexpected expenses were the postage cost to send certified mail to the three credit reporting companies (go to www.clarkhoward.com for more info on this), we haven't had our identity stolen but we want to make sure it never happens and this is the best way we've found to do it, and the shorts on clearance at target (DD9 is growing like a weed and her shorts that used to be 5" from the knee are now more like a foot, and the school says that they have to be 5". I want special dispensation for freakishly tall families! )

 

[global_mom]

: and the shorts on clearance at target (DD9 is growing like a weed and her shorts that used to be 5" from the knee are now more like a foot, and the school says that they have to be 5". I want special dispensation for freakishly tall families! )

I feel your pain on this one! My DD9 is 5'6" tall and wears a woman's size 9 shoe. It is so hard to find clothes at a decent price for her. She can't wear the junior sizes and the grown up clothes are soooo expensive. Thank goodness for Target or she would be naked!

I am really impressed with how many 0 days you have. Keep up the great work, it is inspiring!!

 

[Siouxstone]

Bought a few groceries yesterday, but had a $0 day today!


5/1-$0
5/2-$33 at Walmart, budgeted, $35 unplanned
5/3-$0
5/4-$0
5/5-$38 groceries at Sam's
5/6-$8 out of Mother's Day budget
5/7-$87 groceries, crap at grocery store and a giant cookie
5/8-$0
5/9-$18 out of Mother's Day budget for day out alone with DS
5/10-$0 I guess, don't know when DH & DS bought presents
5/11-$26.14 at Lowes for emergency plumbing repairs, $33 eating out overage on Mother's Day budget, $34 Sam's & Target
5/12-$0
5/13-$62 on groceries
5/14-$0
5/15-$19 Cheesecake Factory, $13 at Sam Moon, $27 Anniversary dinner, $6 smoothie
5/16-$0
5/17- Up $50!
5/18-$22 groceries
5/19-$0

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

Where is everyone????


I bought the girls bookbags at LLbean yesterday, I had a free shipping code that someone had posted on the budget board. It still came to 150!!!

I had budgeted for the two "regular" book bags at 49/each, but then when I saw them in person I realized that they were too small for my two kids (each, as I mentioned earlier, very tall for their ages and growing fast)-the handles were too short, and I noticed a few kids with the regular ll bean bag having trouble pulling them. So I ended up getting two of the "deluxe" bags that are significantly longer handled and also bigger on the inside. Those were 69 each.

D'oh.

Well, hopefully I can pull that extra 50 out somewhere else...

I told the girls yesterday after they were done picking them and ordering them that they'd be bringing these bags to college .

 

[IlliniMouse]

I need to total some things up, but know I went over in my misc. spending. The garden centers are evil places. Sure those flowers look all innocent and pretty...they brainwash you into thinking they won't kill your budget. Then you put them in your cart and before you know it, you've overspent!!!

The other thing that has killed us this month is car repairs. We needed a transmission rebuilt, and another $375 in repairs on top of that. Then we needed shocks for the truck. Then my less than 2 year old battery died. We didn't have to pay full price for that, but hadn't planned on that. Right now my vehicle is in the shop (with less than 100 miles left remaining on the warranty ).

I know I'm doing good on groceries and gas though. Not good enough to cover all the car expenses. Oh! And DH decided to turn the field part of our 5 acres into yard...so he spent $400 on grass seed. He's not on board with this budget thing.

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

Seriously, y'all need to post more here so I'll stop causing trouble over on the "it's the thought that counts" thread

 

[global_mom]

Seriously, y'all need to post more here so I'll stop causing trouble over on the "it's the thought that counts" thread

I need to go back over to that thread and read the latest posts. That one was a doozy!

i am dramatically over on the groceries budget. Prices are not really increased in our area but I needed to stock up for summer lunches. The kids get out of school tomorrow scared1: ) and they will be at home much more and thus eat much more and thus it costs me much more,etc. I am over budget about $200 on groceries but hopefully am fully stocked for a few weeks.

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

Where is everyone????


I bought the girls bookbags at LLbean yesterday, I had a free shipping code that someone had posted on the budget board. It still came to 150!!!:
Well, hopefully I can pull that extra 50 out somewhere else...
I told the girls yesterday after they were done picking them and ordering them that they'd be bringing these bags to college .

They just cancelled our tennis dinner, which I had budgeted $50 for . Bummer about the dinner, goodie about the finding that extra 50!

 

[decaff38]

My first attempt budget:
Update for 5/20 need to get it on paper before the next week hits!!

160/200 for groceries( not including the parties) +10.00 bread store
60/100 gas (hubby filled my tank so that helps)
130/75 for Mom's party - 13/25.00 for nice plant for Mom Day(over 55.00)
28/25 for eating out- Burger for me, Pizza for Fri Night( free pizza and $3 off coupon)(over $3)
11./30.00 garage sales Did well, got things I was looking for.
Mortgage, electric, garbage, etc.. stays the same every month
16/25.00 Graduation: postage
18/80.00 beverages( used walgreens coupon and reward - have 10/12packs so far.
48/250 food( includes 2 breakfasts for 10 each day and a barbeque for 100)
50/25 for birthday gifts and cards(flowers for best friend's birthday-she filed for divorce , 2 gift magazine subscriptions for sister's Z( 5.00 each at Best Deal magazines) Card for BIL ( over $25.00)
50 for graduation gifts to daughter's friends(5)

Survived the 80th party - Sister of course went over the original budget. We split it 5 ways(5 kids) I ended up with a bunch of the leftover food and am having lunches and snacks all week "for free". Mom had a fabulous time and it was well worth it.
On to the graduation and graduation party.
I am pretty close to on track right now.

5/20 - finishing up the menu planning and house stuff. Will have 12 people sleeping here(beyond our reg. family) for 2 nights. I feel okay, concerned I have forgotten a BIG item.

Feels good to put it on paper rather than have it run wild and wonder where it all went.

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

The local bored, overprivileged teenagers in our neighborhood were playing mailbox baseball last night and smashed my mailbox to bits and broke the post off at ground level

I'm NOT taking the new mailbox out of my beauty budget...

 

[paulasillars]

15th - $15 for petrol
16th - $55 for dinner with Robert & his Mum
17th - $17 to top up GC for facial
18th - ~$34 for some Cabbage Patch Kids (I collect them) and ~$20 for gift for baby shower (I forgot this one!)
19th - 22nd - Exempt as I was working out of town with an daily allowance

$172.50/$250

Figures for the 18th are approximate as I paid in US$.

The last few days I was working out of town with a daily allowance of $80/day and I spent less than half off this. Breakfast in my hotel room and food court lunches and dinners only came to about $20/day.

7 pays until we go to WDW!

 

[KarenAylwood]

The local bored, overprivileged teenagers in our neighborhood were playing mailbox baseball last night and smashed my mailbox to bits and broke the post off at ground level

I'm NOT taking the new mailbox out of my beauty budget...

What?? I'd be SO mad!!! Have they done this before? Ugh. It's so irritating to think they'd get away with something like this. Sorry


I haven't posted in a while. Since my mom left, I've been good!

5/19: $0
5/20: $0
5/21: $0

While my mom was here on the other hand... a different story. I didn't exactly stick to my $500 budget. I totalled everything up, and including food, gas and SHOPPING- I'm at about $686. Although I did buy a few things for her (and she for me) and a few xmas gifts in that total. We had an awesome time and I don't regret it. I'll just have to move some things around and be a little smarter about DBF and I's trip in July

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

The new mailbox and post cost me about 100 bux. I bought a good post and a cheap mailbox, just in case it happens again.

The neighbor across the street told me that they caught the kids (who were evidently stupid enough to come down our street AGAIN for a second go) and that if I call the police station I can get their names, etc. I'll probably do that and send their parents the bill for the new mailbox.

When I was at Lowe's I found a 600 dollar, 5 burner with rotisserie stainless steel never been used grill for 199. I asked them if they'd take 100 for it AND THEY SAID YES .

Guess what the downside is? My DH HATES it, says it's too big and gaudy. Well, crap. Too bad! He doesn't want to give up his 40 yo POS grill...

 

[Siouxstone]

When I was at Lowe's I found a 600 dollar, 5 burner with rotisserie stainless steel never been used grill for 199. I asked them if they'd take 100 for it AND THEY SAID YES .

That Rocks! Oooh, I have new grill envy! We left our old gas grill behind when we moved from Georgia and I miss it like crazy. Kind of gives a silver (or stainless steel) lining to the whole mailbox thing.

I spent $18.52 on a birthday card, bag of Starbuck's Coffee, and two slices of cake for DH's b-day when I realized I wouldn't be able to even take him to dinner on his b-day. I didn't know I didn't have a second manager at work yesterday, so I didn't get my dinner break. I swear, I spend more money on guilt. Then he bought something at the welding supply store for $13.96.

I guess next month, I'm just going to not set a specific amount for gas. Who the heck knows what's about to happen with prices.

5/1-$0
5/2-$33 at Walmart, budgeted, $35 unplanned
5/3-$0
5/4-$0
5/5-$38 groceries at Sam's
5/6-$8 out of Mother's Day budget
5/7-$87 groceries, crap at grocery store and a giant cookie
5/8-$0
5/9-$18 out of Mother's Day budget for day out alone with DS
5/10-$0 I guess, don't know when DH & DS bought presents
5/11-$26.14 at Lowes for emergency plumbing repairs, $33 eating out overage on Mother's Day budget, $34 Sam's & Target
5/12-$0
5/13-$62 on groceries
5/14-$0
5/15-$19 Cheesecake Factory, $13 at Sam Moon, $27 Anniversary dinner, $6 smoothie
5/16-$0
5/17- Up $50!
5/18-$22 groceries
5/19-$0
5/20-$18.52 Birthday card & bag of coffee for DH, DH spent $13.96 on welding supplies
5/21-gas for DH's car

 

[TaniaU]

The long weekend hurt Beautiful weather meant that we had to have a BBQ and of course we bought too much food (and booze) that I think the groceries will be over for the month. But a good time was had by all!

I think I may have finally got DH on board. He gets a small reprive until the start of June and then he's got to be on an allowance (which he doesn't know about yet).

$500/ $600 Groceries / food
$205 / $100 Household
$125 / $200 Gas

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

.....ohhh, so fell off the wagon. Forgot that I pay the kids for each A they get, and if they get straight A's they get a big gift. Ack! Darn my smart kids!!!!

I'll post more later, when they're not looking over my shoulder...

 

[paulasillars]

19th - 22nd - Exempt as I was working out of town with an daily allowance
23rd - $0
24th - $0

$172.50/$250

Update on household expenses as follows -
Monitored security system - $36.77/$36.77
Electricity - $116.33/$120
Groceries - $415.60/$350 - YIKES! We may need to bump this up a bit if prices keep going up. The pantry is very well stocked now though so we can eat that down a bit next month
Eating Out - $43.70/$100 - we are getting takeaways this evening so this will go up about another $30
Farmers Market/Fruit/Vege - $80/$80
Misc Stuff - $137.50/$300 - this will probably also go up today as Robert has gone out to a plant nursery
Telephone/Internet - $100.44/$105.00
Gas Heating/Cooking - $0/$30 which will roll over to next month (paid intermittently as required)
Cleaning - $125/$100 - I paid in advance so this will cover some of next months too
Land Tax - $111.01/$111.01
Insurance $0/$95 which will roll over to next month (paid quarterly)
DVC Dues $0/$60 which will roll over to next month (paid annually)
Pets - $330/$60 - which should be covered in the next two months we should need anything - hopefully (paid intermittently as required)
Car - $183.22/$40 - it required its annual registration this month - should be covered in in the next few months but I'm suspecting I may have under estimated this category and will review at the end of the year.

1 week to go until EOM! Keep strong people!

 

[paulasillars]

23rd - $0
24th - $0
25th - $0

$172.50/$250

Bumping this up to the top...

 

[Kickapoo Joie Juice]

Ok here are my updates:

May 1: Books 18, Food 258.99
May 2: 26.72 CVS, 20.25 DH's shirts
May 3: 0
May 4: 20 photos (budgeted)
May 5: 0
May 6: 54.73 gas (I have a motorcycle license, I should seriously consider using that for work!)
May 7: 12.56 food, 28.94 shower gift, 32.04 teacher gift (had a parent not step up for a commitment and I wanted to make sure the teacher go her teacher appreciation gifts)
May 8: 96.13 food
May 9: 0
May 10: 0
May 11: 0 (Happy Mother's Day!)
May 12: 11 food
May 13: 0
May 14: 14.22 post office (sent off credit freeze applications via certified mail), 23 car wash (budgeted), 48/target (tights for recital and shorts for girls on clearance, oops.)
May 15: 0
May 16: 0
May 17: 0
May 18: 255 food (166.32 left for the month)
May 19: 0
May 20: 59.88 for car headphones. I drove over a pair that had fallen out of the car. D'oh! And THANK YOU Mazda for charging so darn much for them...I don't know where I'm pulling that from at this point. 20 Gift card from petsmart for DD's math teacher (we gave her a surprise end of year party)-I'm pulling that one out of my 25/pets category.
May 21: 0
May 22: 133 Hallmark. Yeah, you read that right. If either kid got straight A's they got ten webkinz. All A's and a B, they get paid 10/A. My older DD got 6 A's and 1 B (which was an 89 and she was so bummed!) so that was 60. Oops. So much for anticipatory spending. I know a lot of you may think that is nuts but it works really well motivationally for our family, and we put a lot of stock in the value of education...however I digress...
May 23: 23-Dh's shirts agian. As the weather warms up he stops wearing sweaters to work. I'll have to rework this for more next month, and 22.81 Ace Hardware. (more webkinz-8 at Hallmark, 2 at Ace. Ace had them on sale-oh MAN why didn't I go there first!)
May 24: 0

I didn't put the mailbox in there because I pulled the money from my home improvement savings account . I did go to the police station and filed a police report, so I have a chance of bringing the kids to small claims and getting my money back at some point. I am SO going to put a dent in their lives if I can. I'd much rather they spend their leisure time at small claims court than bashing mailboxes (can you tell I'm the kind of person who just can't let stuff go until I've chewed on it a lot???)

So, upcoming expenses this week are the carpet cleaning and the older DD's sleepover with 5 girls and herself. I figure I should be able to keep the grocery budget in line with that few girls (at 9 and 10 they all still eat like truckers, though), and the $200 that I budgeted for the memorial day party will instead go to the A rewards.

I'm actually doing really well with the beauty category, but my gift category went kerfluey this month, it looks like.

As of May 25:

Food 800 budgeted, 633.38 spent, 166.32 left
2 Bookbags, 100 budgeted, 150 spent ,50 over (d'oh.)
Gifts, 100 budgeted, 121.20 spent, 21.20 over
recital flowers (became tights) 20 budgeted/spent
tennis dinner 50 budgeted, 13 spent (it was cancelled, 13 went to captain's gift), 37 left Ok, I'm pulling the headphones out of this category, so it just became 23 over
DH's shirts, 20 budgeted, 42 spent (will adjust next month), 22 over
Beauty, $50 budgeted, 26.32 spent, 24 left (I look like Velma on the OUTSIDE this month )
Car, 25 budgeted, 23 spent, 2 left
Carpets, 150 budgeted, 0 spent, 150 left (will spend this week-younger DD barfed all over her bedroom rug last night ) Did I mention I HATE carpets?
Soccer photos $20 budgeted/spent
Pets $25 budgeted, 20 spent, 5 left (gift card for math teacher at petsmart)
Cookout Nee Sleepover Nee "A" Gifts: 200 budgeted, 195.21 spent, 4 left

So if I add up all my greens and reds, (drumroll) I have $135in the green. The two expenses I have coming up are the carpet and any food for the sleepover. I *think* I can do it, but that's just not much left...

I was going to go out and get the Wii Fit today, but I think I will just budget for it in June, instead. It'd be nice to make it on budget...