Here’s our end of September numbers! I’m discouraged about some of our spending and at the same time very happy with our progress in other areas. Our gas bill and home repairs numbers are much better this month, while our grocery bill skyrocketed. Some of the numbers are staying in the same range, which tells me we need to think of creative ways to cut back. Now that I’ve seen four months of numbers, I’m ready to challenge myself to spend smarter.
A few of this month’s wins:
-I’ve been getting my hair done at the Aveda Institute. It’s about $75 for a cut, highlight and lowlight. It doesn’t look awesome, but it looks good enough that I’m fine with it. I don’t hate it, and that’s a win.
-RAIN! LOTS OF RAIN! Which means we don’t have to spend $100 having water trucked in to fill our well. Yay!
-Meal planning. This week we made a plan, went to the store, and made a ton of food on Sunday. I had fun and feel like we’ll eventually save money doing it this way and we’ll also be eating better. Yay teamwork!
-The cars are both fine, they don’t need anything, and that’s a huge budget win. The more we’re not spending on car and house repairs, the more we’re throwing in to our emergency fund, and that feels great!
*Totals for each category are in this order:
June, July, August, September
Home and car repairs:
1458, 843, 848, 258
Rental repairs:
0, 0, 0, 340, 270
Groceries:
664, 677, 363, 720
Gas:
496, 587, 563, 374
Entertainment and misc:
245, 815, 440, 343
Gifts:
80, 100, 0, 28
Individual meals on the go:
504, 981, 256, 302
Dinner dates/ eating out together:
237, 504, 108, 269
Out with friends:
150, 245, 0, 236
Self maintenance (Clothes, makeup, haircuts):
431, 504, 134, 359
Interesting numbers. The groceries number is high – personally, my husband and I really challenge ourselves (family of four) to spend smarter on that front without compromising quality. The next thread should break out who spends how much on what ;). We are probably about equal to you two when it comes to debt load. Trust me, it will feel so much better to have kids without all that hanging over you! (If, you know, you want to have kids – no pressure!)
Your groceries are a bit high but you can work on that. That is my weakness and something that I always need to work on. I think you need to group “individual meals on the go,” “dinner dates/eating out together,” and “out with friends” together so you have one accurate number about how much you’re spending by eating out. $864 for one month is a staggering amount.
Props to you for getting your hair done at the Aveda institute.
I know you guys are just a few months into blogging, but I am seriously shocked by the amount of money you spend on food/entertainment. Almost $1800 just for September! I understand not wanting to miss out on hanging with friends and having a good time, but those numbers seem high. And in 4 months you guys have spent $1400 on self maintenance?! I just am shocked by your spending and really question your commitment to getting out of debt.
So what is actually included in the Entertainment and Misc category? I agree with the suggestion to combine all forms of eating out. I suspect you have the individual categories because you are in denial about how much you actually spend dining out and you don’t want to see the final tally.
Do you have individual fun money allotments each month? My husband and I dealt with individual meals on the go by increasing monthly fun money by $50 and making those meals come out of our fun money. We both cut back significantly because we could keep any leftover money that we didn’t use on meals. Now that we are in the habit of eating in or packing lunches we have been able to lift the rule and use the family account again for these meals. Also, we agreed to increase fun money by $25 every time we completely paid off a debt. Talk about motivation!
Finally, those are some impressive self-maintenance numbers. We have two small children who require a new wardrobe twice a year and I don’t think we’ve spent $1200 all year on family clothes and haircuts. All makeup and accessories (purses/shoes) come out of my fun money unless it is a legitimate need (like running shoes.)
I guess I’m suggesting ways to be accountable to yourself. As a couple it is so easy to nitpick each other’s spending (you had lunch out three times this week and two Starbucks so I deserve it too, you spend $75 on hair every month so I deserve…) that you can end up undermining your goals together. If this isn’t happening to y’all then just skip over my comment — maybe it will help someone else — but I’ve seen it happen all to often (including my relationship!)
ahh, I hate to be a downer, but I have to agree with some of the above comments: food and entertainment seem to be your biggest budget busters! YIKES! It’s great if you can buy groceries and eat at home or pack lunches, and spending more on fresh produce is totally worth the slightly higher price tag, but eating out needs its butt kicked, hard.
I have totally overspent on food, so I know how hard it can be to get that huge budget-buster under control, but I think that’s clearly the biggest chunk that could be reigned in with a little creativity.
To end on a positive note, great job cutting down your personal maintenance and gas!
Seriously – good for you for cont inuing this journey! You’ve taken some heat for your food and entertainment spending. Hopefully the reactions you’re getting are starting to sink in and make you think about your habits. You might be feeling defensive about the comments… will you let them discourage you or spur you on? If you really want to change your lives and brighten your future, its time to get mad at that debt. You have to want to be debt free more than anything else… more than you dislike cooking. More than you want a comfy new home. You have to get serious about this! What is making you hold onto these habits? What % of your take home income is $1, 800? What is your true priority? If its getting out of debt, then that is where you should be putting your money. Have you told your friends and family that you’re up to your eyeballs in debt and that you’ll be setiously cutting back? Or are you spending to keep up appearances?
The good news here is that you know where the money hemmorrhage is. And you know what changes will make the biggest difference. Can you imagine putting putting an extra $1, 000 toward that debt every month? What will it save in interest? How much sooner will you be debt free? Imagine hiw much less stressful your lives will be once you lose the debt. Once you’re ready to change your lives, attack that item like its the only thing standing in your way. For one month challenge yourselves to spend no more than $500 on all food and entertainment. You can do it.. Good luck!
One more little addition… as others have said a full budget with all categories will be important as you move forward. Perhaps it would help to look at all categories in priority order:
Necessary costs that you can try to minimize, but which still must be covered:
Housing
• Mortgage/taxes
• Home repairs
• Utilities
• Insurance
Rental unit costs
Debt payments (principal and interest)
Transportation
• Car repairs
• Parking?
• Insurance
• Gas
Groceries (necessary costs only)
Cleaning supplies
Cut to the bone:
Self maintenance
• Clothes
• Makeup
• Haircuts
Entertainment
• Travel
• Shows/movies
• Individual meals on the go
• Dinner dates/ eating out together
• Out with friends
Oh, and I’d put home decorating and gifts in the “cut to the bone” category as well. Any professional/career costs would go in the “need to cover” category. Okay, I’m done now. I think.
Gifts are hard for me. More than anything, I really enjoy showing people I’m thinking of them by sending things or giving things for special events.
I can tell that about you so when I saw $28, I figured you did cut that to the bone. You do need to be aware of Christmas though. It is a time of year where everything conspires to make you want to spend more.
When my daughter was 9 months old I had bought a number of great things for her from garage sales. We were out shopping one day for others and I started to cry because she wasn’t going to get any NEW toys from her Mommy & Daddy & Santa, everything was used. So I ended up buying her a new toy as well. That was societal pressure overruling my common sense and I knew it but couldn’t stop it from happening.
It did make me aware for future years and when the kids were small Santa often brought used toys. As they got older, Santa would bring a HUGE gift (i.e. a gaming console) for the two of them. They actually believed in Santa longer (or pretended to believe longer) because they didn’t want to cut off the gravy-train of new things!
“We were out shopping one day for others and I started to cry because she wasn’t going to get any NEW toys from her Mommy & Daddy & Santa, everything was used.”
{{CanadianKate}}
The holidays are a tough time. My minister does a good job of always remembering that the holidays aren’t fun for everyone – she gently reminds us that they can be a painful time for some.
Maybe I’m missing something – where are things like car insurance, electricity, cable, and cell phone? There might be ways to reduce spending in those areas. Also, getting gourmet take-out (from places like Central Market or Whole Foods) is a good compromise to eating out. It’s not the least expensive option, but you still save on things like tips, parking, drinks, etc.
I agree. Month after month, we see just partial amounts and just a few categories. If we are to be able to understand your spending at all, we need to see the other figures.
And I also agree … Individual Meals on the Go and Dinner Dates/Eating Out Together are all restaurants. Add in Groceries and you get $1269 for September alone. That is an enormous figure! If you realize that the average month is 4.3 weeks and that each week has 21 meals … 21 x 4.3 = 90.3 meals per month x 2 (since there are 2 of you) = 180.6 meals per month. $1269 divided by 180.6 = $7.14 per person, per meal! Nearly $45 per day for food for the two of you.
This does not factor in Out with Friends.
As others have said, please show us a real monthly budget so that we can help you figure out how to adjust things so that it will all be more feasible.
$1800 on food – I’d have a heart attack if we spent that much. We are a family of two that eat very clean, a lot of organic and do a lot of our own cooking. At MOST, we spend $300 a month on food.
I hate to sound like I’m beating a dead horse as it’s been mentioned by every single person that’s already commented but holy cow! $1800!!!!!
We subscribe to Emeals (on a recommendation of Dave Ramsey) and it helps knowing our grocery list versus buying random food that ends up rotting because we didn’t have an actual plan to cook it.
We both work full time, race and train for bike racing at the National level about 20 hours a week, plus involved in competitive dog sports which also has us on the road and traveling. This is doable for people like us! Promise.
Can you please provide the monthly totals that the house spends? I keep an excel spreadsheet and hold EVERY area of the house to an allowance. Once it’s spent, it’s spent. I give the house it’s own $100 slush fund to buy nicknacks and project materials, once the money is gone, it’s gone. Same with our $300 food allowance. When it’s gone, it’s gone. Start looking in the cupboard and get creative.
OK, chiming in again. I think they know there’s places to cut in the budget. And yes, seeing a total budget would be pretty helpful. But this isn’t called “Blogging Away Debt As Quickly and Painfully As Possible.” I know some of the other bloggers were laser-focused, and yes, Emily and Adam don’t seem to be as desperate, but that’s ok. It’s their life and now it’s their blog. It is a journey and it’s up to them how long they make it.
P.S. I don’t want this to come off as attacking any of the people who made comments in any way. I personally feel they make very good points.
I appreciate your comment. I am all for making our budget and debt repayment easier and more effective, less painful 🙂 I feel like we need to first understand where we’re spending and then decide how to cut back, and then figure out how to put more money towards repayment. It a process 🙂
Thanks for getting the numbers up quickly.
Ditto the comments about amounts and completeness.
I agree with Angie that the idea is to blog away the debt, not necessarily with pain and suffering. At the same time, the numbers don’t represent average incomes so it is frustrating to many to see more money budgeted for food, car and fun than others have for their entire budget (including housing, insurance, phone, internet, clothes, food, car payment.)
We don’t have a complete picture of inflow and outflow. I understand you may not want to share that but if you aren’t willing to come clean with the whole picture, you may not be well suited to be representatives of this blog.
I agree that it doesn’t have to be a quick and painful debt reduction BUT Adam and Emily have set some pretty quick time frames for their debt reduction. I can’t link from my phone maybe someone else can find it. And if they don’t want to do it as fast as possible with input from the readers then why are they blogging here? I thought we were here to offer support and hold them accountable to positive change in their bottom line?
The point of this blog is to share in a community one person, or couple’s journey to get debt free. You all ask for more numbers and then lambast them when they share…I don’t understand. If their income is high enough that they can continue paying off their debts (which they are) with this grocery/eating out number then it isn’t a concern. Sharing how your family is successful is always encouraging but allow them to have their own journey.
Amen.
I think close analysis of your spending has really revelaed food to be your primary budget buster. I suggest challenging yourself to dissect this category even further. In really tight months, I write down every.single.penny spent every day. Reading the credit card out loud to my husband helps drive home the point. Maybe a good challenge would be to report back day by day food spending on a weekly basis to help drive home the accountability. I have even known some bloggers to upload a copy of their grocery receipt.
You know us readers will hoot and hollar for you if you come back with several no spend days and the declaration that you almost went to supper, but instead ate a meal out of the pantry/freezer. Maybe you had a rotton day and went out to eat, but decided to skip the appetizer and drinks, so the restaurant damage was much less than it could have been. I just want to encourage you to leverage the active reader base to drive your behaviors and accomplish your goals
Let me just say…my husband is a government contractor and affected by this shutdown. We have lived a “painful and sacrificed life” for about 18 months now and paid off all debt AND built our emergency savings to weather this storm for at least 2 years. We are in the minority, as evidenced by most of our friends and colleagues who are absolutely in panic mode right now. You can keep riding along spending $1800 a month on eating out and hanging with friends if you want, but I truly hope nothing like job loss affects you! You REALLY need to be laser focused on your debt!! Trust me, you’re living on the edge!!!
Cathy, sorry to hear about your husband. Great job on sacrificing these last few years to get you where you are today and be able to weather the storm.
Thank you, Jeni! The peace we feel right now while others are so scared makes the past 2 years SO worth it! I feel for them, but they should’ve seen the writing on the wall at least a year ago and planned accordingly. I launched my own business this year and I had my highest month of sales in September!! It’s enough to not touch our savings right now and I’m so thankful I did it:) It’s bizarre. I’m happy today to spend unexpected time with my hubby while he’s home and know that we’re going to be ok and we achieved the “peace” that Dave Ramsey always talks about. We’ll make it through:)
I’m glad that you are not the perfect frugal couple right off the bat. So many financial bloggers seem to be “perfect” with their money.
I know it’s a constant learning and process (as you’ve mentioned) and it’s the beginning of the journey. It is inspiring some of us, imperfect people who are fighting the debt battle.
So glad to hear that. We can’t please everyone, but it’s nice if even one person gets something from it.
I’m not going to lambast you for your spending habits. I’m in the camp that this is a process, and what feels right to you isn’t going to feel right to others. You’re just starting on paying down your debt, and you’ll get a better feel for what works and what doesn’t as you go along.
I would suggest for ease of use that you consolidate your food/eating out categories into one. This not only will make it easier for the readers, but may help you budget better when you’re evaluating total numbers. Nothing says sticker shock like seeing hard numbers and knowing if you hadn’t eaten/shopped/whatever, you could have paid off your student loan or credit card.
This seems smart. I think this idea would help my family too. So many times I get discouraged if our grocery bill goes down but our eating out goes up. Combining them might give me a better, more accurate number for how much it costs to feed our family monthly–then trim from there.
Not to beat on a dead horse, but the food spending does seem high. Our spending is also quite high in this category, averaging about $1000/month based on a quick peek in Mint. On the other hand, we are a family of four living in a high cost area (although not necessarily especially high cost for food) and I eat lunch out every day. We do cook most dinners, but tend to splurge a few times a month on takeout dinners when we have friends/relatives over.
Either way, maybe this would be a topic for a future post, e.g. breaking down what a $700 in groceries + $500 in restaurant spending looks like? This would absolutely not be to beat you guys up, but purely as an analytical exercise. For instance, maybe you guys ended up with frozen steaks/other food that would defer spending in future months?
The greatest benefit of getting your numbers in writing is to be able to really SEE where everything goes in a typical month. It’s the old “knowledge is power” principle and it’s a great starting point for change. Though I had always had a budget, it wasn’t until my husband and I did a detailed one with the DR course that we not only got a totally clear view of our expenses, but from it we got THE plan that for us cleared out all consumer debt, and has us well on our way after early retirement, to our mortgage being eliminated too. With this there’s lots of opportunity for enjoying new goals for our family and new business desires to explore, by not having the heavy weight of monthly bills.
It is a great opportunity for making educated choices for yourselves and the future you want to carve out for yourselves by taking control of your finances, particularly while you are in a good position to do this. Your food budget shows you have a lot of room for creative change and there’s loads of great resources in blogland to help in this challenge. All the best as you two move on with your goal setting and achieving these!!
I couldn’t agree more! And yes, food spending will be the first thing we tackle.
Of course it’s a process and we don’t expect perfection. BUT, it’s hard to imagine ever being successful financially if you are okay with or justifying those numbers. Cutting food spending from $1800 to $900 shouldn’t be that painful. $900 would still be a ridiculous amount to spend. But if you did that, I would applaud your progress.
Don’t want to beat a dead horse, but just had to roll my eyes at the idea of cutting your food bills substantially as being something painful. The whole point is that should be an easy/painless thing to get better control of.
Maybe that’s the bottom line – as long as you view getting out of debt as “pain and suffering” it is going to be hard goal to achieve.
I have been reading this blog since Tricia. I know for you two this is still new, but one of the major differences I’m sensing between you guys and past bloggers is they got really mad at having debt. It took Claire awhile too, but once they got angry, they did everything they could to get it paid off. Sometimes things so extreme I shook my head (I’m not ready for my husband to start giving me haircuts). One of the reasons I like this blog is for those ideas and to see the progress they were able to make due to making the hard choices.
And, $1800 for food for two people in one month? C’mon you guys! You can cut that in half. For inspiration, read the blog at “The Prudent Homemaker”. She feeds her family of 9 on less than that for a year. Some of her methods may not work for you, like some of her gardening, but others have inspired me to make changes for our family.
I’ll check it out! I’m glad you’re still following along even though we’ve haven’t gone postal on our debt yet. It will get better, I promise!
If the grocery went up because you bought staples for future bag lunches and dinners in, that’s a good investment. Kudos to you for putting your self out there in this barrage of feedback. It takes more guts than tackling much of the spending issues.
Everyone has their own style of self motivation. Anger apparently is popular, but a game/fun mentality can also work. Competitive style weekly contests for who does best avoiding on the go meal expenses. Martyrdom can work here. “hey I ate carrots and cheese and you stopped at panera.”
I would not have thought to make it a game/competition. We LOVE games. That actually might work! THANK YOU!
You might want to consider getting a bit creative with your food budget. The cost of living in our state is some of the highest in the country (while TX is definitely far down on the list) and we spend about $400 a month for a family of 3 and that includes eating out, fresh produce, vitamins and cleaning supplies etc. The relief you are going to feel from being out from under the debt will far surpass the uncomfortableness of tightening your belts now. My husband and I both make decent money and we also have side jobs/personal businesses as well and it stunk not being able to live out that income while we were digging out of debt. Especially when all our co-workers and friends were spending more than their income! But we’ve paid off a generous 6 figure sum of debt in the last three years (many degrees, cars, wedding, baby etc.) and life on the other side is SO.MUCH.BETTER. Some old habits have still stuck around though now that the debt is gone and food is definitely one of them. We splurge more now than we used to but our splurge is the $400.
Consider meal planning, freezer cooking, brown bagging, getting water instead of soda or splitting an entre when you’re out to eat. Bonus, it’s healthier. Freezer cooking/meal planning is by far what saves us the most. Now that we have a kid, we prefer to spend our time outside of work with her, so I cook every 4ish months, throw 20 different meal options in the freezers plus sides & breakfasts and then its as simple as consulting our own personal menu when deciding what to eat for dinner that night. The freezer cooking takes me about a weekend to throw together (plus prep time) and then we’re set. If we don’t feel like any of the 20 different options, we’ll go out or make something else. Every meal is made large enough to accommodate at least one day of leftovers for lunches. My husband still gets giddy coming home from work and “ordering up” what he wants for dinner. By the time I get home from work, dinner is hot and on the table. 🙂 Definitely worth considering!
Hmmm..I agree with the others, you have some drastic changes to make. No offense, but you just don’t seem like a couple who is working hard to get out of debt. You are living as if you are not $100,000 in the red.
Maybe you just haven’t hit that point where you are just downright pissed off at the amount of money you owe. My husband and I have a little less than $30K left to pay off (also student loans, like you guys) and I cannot even fathom spending half of what y’all spend on going out each month! We have busted our assess to pay our debt down. Entertainment = $75. Gifts = $0. Meals on the go = $20, maybe. Dates = $0 (our date nights fall under the entertainment category). Out with friends = $0 (we join them for any free activities or we just meet up at someone’s place). Does it suck? Sometimes, but we are at the point where getting out of debt is more satisfying than spending $100 at a restaurant.
I am encouraged that Adam and Emily want to pay off their debt. A few of you mention that they aren’t MAD enough…..therefore they’re not “seriously” paying off their debt. I don’t think that is the case. Being willing to open your private life up, and being willing to listen to other people’s criticism shows their seriousness. They are trying and should be commended.
I think an important note is that the budget does not include everything. Carefully keeping track of expenditures (though boring!) needs to be number 1. Then you know what you’re dealing with. It would also be important to list grocery bills according to product. Does your grocery bill include paper products? Cleaning products? Processed foods? Some weeks will be more when we are stocking our cupboards, etc…. To eat frugally requires some cash set aside for foods on special that can be frozen, etc….
Instead of criticizing it may be more useful to give actual dinner menu’s, healthy lunches, less criticism and more ideas……….also remember time is money, money is time….this will be labor extensive to get started keeping track of expenses….
One idea…..if you separate your food items on the checkout counter, your receipt will have a natural separation….meat, vegetable, paper goods, etc. that would be easier for you to see at a glance. Making a menu for the week is helpful and I think the people who comment here could give great suggestions that would prove useful. Maybe there’s a computer app. that would make budgeting and keeping track of expenses easier?
Keep in mind we are all delightfully different. Maybe cutting your husband’s hair works for you, maybe it would spell disaster for another. Giving suggestions is just that….here you can try this..but I won’t judge you if it doesn’t work for you. Something that may be easy for one family doesn’t work for another. Remember the object is to live, love and….pay off debt, happily…..
Thank you for the encouragement Becky! We’ve started meal planning and it helps a lot! We would love to hear anyone’s ideas on menu items.
I live in a rural area that doesn’t have access to grocery store salad bars. Is this a cheaper and healthier way to have the variety of fresh veggies that might cost more to buy separately and potentially be wasteful for a smaller family. Anyone done research? Also for my business and home I buy paper towel and toliet paper with coupons, but what is the cheapest, really?