Budget Tune-Up: Tightening Our Belts Starting in June
Our vacation house is coming along! We are working on renovations, and we have a garage full of furniture waiting to be put together. As I shared in my weekly newsletter, the appraisal came in lower than we hoped. A lower appraisal meant that we had to sink a lot more cash into the deal than we hoped. (The cash we used was from the cash-out refinance on the home we rent out.) Since we lost so much of our cash, we had to pay for renovations and furniture using our credit cards. Now we are in need of a major Budget Tune-Up to get ourselves on track for paying off all the debt within one year.
I use Google Sheets to keep a list of all of our expenses organized by category. It includes things like mortgage payment, property taxes, gas and tolls, gifts, donations, allowances, groceries, eating out, utilities, insurance, blogging expenses, Roth IRA, college savings, vacations, etc.
I also have a list of all of our revenue sources. Then I tweak the budget until it completely balances.
Our biggest hemorrhaging happens in a couple areas:
- Eating Out: Matt and I both hate cooking! And my job is really stressful. And pandemic parenting is really stressful. So it’s easy to justify eating out a lot! And it’s easy for the four of us to rack up quite the bill if we order drinks and/or desserts.
- Entertainment: Our entertainment budget is $150 for the month (or $37.50 per person). We are especially in danger of over-spending once our favorite movie theater opens back up. They serve food, so we can easily blow our entire month’s budget in one fell swoop. Also, I don’t specifically have an Amazon budget or a Target budget and yet we spend a ton of money in both places on things that I justify as “entertainment,” like a portable air hockey table.
- Groceries: I would say we spend about $130 at the grocery store each week for the four of us. We reduced this number significantly when Amazon bought Whole Foods and we stopped shopping there. However, Matt gets additional “grocery” items at Target every single week, like cans of tea and candy for himself. I think at least the candy should come out of his personal allowance budget while we are in debt. What do you think?
So it’s time to tighten up our spending! We have a goal of getting out of debt in one year or sooner. We need to stick to our budget each and every month. The timing isn’t great since we are going on vacation in June. But it is what it is!
4 Comments
Mary B.
Ontario is in a vastly different place than Texas right now, so eating out and entertainment and similar are not an option for us at the moment. That being said, here are the strategies we’re using to keep our budget on track:
Eating out (or ordering takeout) is a once a week event. We stick with water unless a drink comes with a kids meal. Dessert? It better be your birthday. We also have our takeout hacks to lower the cost (we often make our own sides at home).
We do not buy new unless there is no other option. This has been a tricky one to follow during the pandemic, as I am unable to go thrift shopping, but we’ve made it work due to kijiji and Facebook marketplace. Before we even buy secondhand I will typically see if we can get what we want from our local Buy Nothing group. I am amazed at what we have scored from that group.
Make do or do without. This was my Gran’s way of life and I try to follow it (with mixed success). There’s lots of things I would love right now….a better storage system in my front hall, for example. But it’s not actually a need if we put things away as soon as we come in the house. I also try to apply this to “shopping in my own home”. What solutions do I already have at hand in the house? How can I make things work, without spending money? We live in a society where it’s very easy to solve a problem by going shopping, and that’s a problem on so many levels.
Meal planning (we use a 3 week rotation) has also helped to keep grocery costs down. Saturday is takeout night, Friday is new recipe night, and Thursday is leftovers/raid the fridge night. We use Costco for things like meat/frozen veggies/diapers (usually a once a month trip) and our local “cheap” grocery store for the rest.
Any extra money that comes in our house (tax refunds, childcare supplement, “just because” cheques from grandparents) is discussed before it is spent or saved. Typically extra money goes into our TFSA or RESP, although some of the extra pandemic related child funding has gone to things like daycamp or additional occupational therapy sessions for our daughter.
I save cash for Christmas all year long, and we redeem our credit card points for gift cards to buy gifts. I am also in the “second hand is okay” for Christmas camp. I need to start a similar fund for back to school expenses, because even with thrifting/hand-me-downs, new shoes and the like can cost a ton of cash.
Sara Cotner
You are impressively good at this, Mary!
Ann
Hi! Late to this but I thought I’d add my thoughts. I love cooking so I can’t empathize with that but I also don’t feel like cooking all the time. I keep basics in the freezer that I can add fresh veggies to such as fried rice, lentil curry, mexican rice and beans, etc. I also intermittent fast so that’s one less meal to cook and very little snacking. I recommend you check out eatinghealthlyspendingless dot com. She’s plant based (now), with easy, cheap recipes without a lot of cooking/work and stuff you can meal prep/plan ahead. Good luck with all your adventures.
Sara Cotner
Thank you so much for sharing, Ann!