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by Ashley

I have a series of “update” posts planned for today. First, I’ll start with updating you on the costs associated with our recent roadtrip to Utah. Check back later for updates regarding dental hygiene and life insurance.

Well the dust has settled and I think the numbers have fallen on our side.

Due to the generosity of my Dad in helping us with the costs associated with the trip, we ended up spending very little out-of-pocket, relatively speaking. Here’s how everything shaped up:

Toddler Toys: $5 (all from Dollar Tree)

Roadtrip snacks and drinks: $30 (from Walmart – lots were leftover so we’ll continue to have snacks at the house for probably the rest of the month!)

Hotel Cost for 1 night: $126

Gasoline Costs: $211

Food on Trip: $45

Total Costs: $417

My Dad gave us $300 to cover the gasoline, which turned out to be more than enough. This brought our total out-of-pocket expenses down to $117. Not too shabby!

We also saved on groceries for the first week of the month. Our snacks came from our grocery budget ($30 snacks out of $100 allotted toward our weekly groceries), but aside from that we didn’t have to buy any more grocery items. That saved us another $70 considering what we normally would have spent for the week. So that brought our costs to $117 + a $70 grocery savings = like spending only $47 for the trip!!! (side note: this is not actually how I do our budget. I would just essentially be “under” in our grocery line-item so I can either buy my fancy cheeses, or try to save and allot any leftover money toward debt at the month’s end. Just giving the $47 figure as an example).

When we got back I did some meal-planning for the week and was pleasantly surprised that even after my 10 days of no spending (at the end of last month) + the week of being gone, we have most of the items already on hand for the meals I have planned this week. I did pick up a few things but all of the meats (the priciest part of the meal) are things we’ve already got in our freezer. It definitely helps us ease into the month (even though we’re practically mid-month at this point), since we won’t have to be stocking up on a ton of grocery items. And I am very much looking forward to lots of home cooked meals. Not only are we trying to work on our eating out expenses, but we ate so much crap over the holiday and while on the road that some home cooked foods sound like heaven!

Did anyone else go out of town for the 4^th of July holiday? How was your spending?