Our Week's Spending

We did pretty good this week. We still need to set out a budget but what we did in January was let ourselves spend as needed so that we can see where we're at & what our trends are. Our goal for February is to have set amounts set out for spending & then total it up at the end of the month. For now, this is what this week looked like, from January 22nd to January 29th:

Groceries ~ $186.69. According to Gail Vaz Oxlade, whom we enjoy her show & are following her tips by website http://www.gailvazoxlade.com/, we can spend $225 per week on groceries. Under budget here! And we'll start out this week in a good spot. We still have packs of chicken & salmon in the freezer & quite a bit of great fruit in the crisper. Good sales & great fresh produce helped at a time of year when usually the fruit is limp & not tasty. This week it was crisp, colorful & cheap!

Dollarama ~ $42.79. Supplies for my class, which I am reimbursed for 100%. And I did well & didn't shop for us!

Walmart ~ $29.61. I hate Wallyworld. Have I ever told you how much I HATE this corporate conglomerate? Don't get me started ... I concede at times because truly, the stuff is cheap. We needed some personal items like shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, gum & light bulbs. All things we won't buy at the grocery store because it's way too expensive there. Hold my breath, get in quickly, pay, leave, breathe. Survived another "close my eyes & pretend I'm not here" trip to WM.

Second Cup ~ $3.94. Dear husband had a meeting at his "office" Second Cup. And truly you can't have a meeting with another artist in a place like SC without ordering a special drink. He asked ahead of time. It wasn't a "No Spend Day". I let him. He's a nice guy. Might keep him ...

Charity Shop ~ $3.25. We end our week with a little trek to our favorite Charity Shop in our community. Sometimes we buy, sometimes we just look. But never spend a large amount here because even though it has great stuff, everything is so low in price, you can buy a lot & not spend much! We bought a whole lighted Christmas Village in December, brand new, still wrapped in the box, large houses & shops, not the small ones, with accessories for, get this, $25! We're great thrift shoppers. On Friday, we bought two pictures with quotes for my office (John Keats & Ralph Waldo Emerson, my favs) for $1 (for both, not a piece), two black iron thingys with swirly design to hang lovely fabric above our window in our bedroom to create a curtain effect (pictures to follow) for $1, brand new small lavender & cream Bearington Bear (brand new with tags) for .50 cents, packages of scrapbooking rub-ons for my stash for .50 cents & a small book for our grandson for .25. All new or next to new. I won't buy "junk" just because it's cheap. I'm pretty picky. And never am disappointed when we shop there. Love Fridays too. We always run into someone we know.

That's all the shopping we did this week. Pretty standard so I think we do okay.

We did manage this month to put $1,350 into our savings account. We have a goal of saving $10,000 in that account by the end of 2012. Now it sits at $7,000. The next couple of months the amount transferred over will vary but this was probably the biggest month for now. I also transferred $4.20 to both our TFSA's. I hate uneven amounts & interest is deposited at the end of each month. Drives me crazy, so I transfer over from our everyday account enough to bring the amounts in each of our TFSA's, our joint savings & our daughter's savings all back up to even amounts. Then I can sleep!

That's how I roll. Lots of thing I can't control in life, but I can make our accounts even!!