I live, write, and garden in the PNW with my husband of 28 years, disabled daughter, adult son, and my 84-year-old mother. We have paid off $250,000.00 worth of debt (if you include the interest) in the last fifteen years and as of 6/12/2020 are 100% DEBT FREE!!!!I had quite a bit of money left in my grocery envelope and since today is the day I refill it, I took out what was in there and redistributed it amongst all my other envelopes. These are all for non-essentials or slow-burner essentials. As in, fishing expenses is not a heavily essential envelope right now, but will be in the spring, since it is something we use to feed the family with. It doesn't get a line item on the budget, but bits and bobs can go in there until I have enough to pay for licenses and gas costs and some fresh water gear hopefully from Good Will. Here is what I added to and the new balance in each envelope.
$12.00 Van Paint Job and Body Work $70.00
$8.00 Fishing Expenses $8.00
$10.00 Summer Things $10.00
$100.00 Bed Frame/Mattress $625.00
$5.00 Hawaii Trip $75.00
$30.00 Electric Vehicle $100.00
$10.00 Beach Vacation $10.00
$100.00 Phone $400.00
Essential
$28.00 Household $29 (Gets more when I go to the credit union)
Normally, I wouldn't add any extra to the household envelope since I replenish it every payday, but we need to buy a couple cases of toilet paper, a case of tissues, and cases of both gallon size freezer bags, which would not quite be enough for the $75 I normally put in I don't think. As it is I might have to hold off on whichever size baggies we have the most of. Inflation is a bear.
After we are done saving up for the bathroom repair, I will be more serious about a couple of these funds. I have $100 more to put in the phone fund, which comes out of the paycheck today, so that will be done and that is the end for my portion of DS's phone. He's paying for the rest. Now I can start saving for my own either phone or computer. Whichever dies first. I want better ones this time around so hopefully they will last a while. But mostly I will slam the emergency fund, bed frame/mattress envelope, and the beach vacation. We want to rent a house on the shore or on a lake for a week next year. May not happen, but it is the goal. Unless the bathroom ends up costing way more than we figured.
October 15th, 2023 at 01:42 am 1697334143
October 16th, 2023 at 09:11 am 1697447471
October 17th, 2023 at 07:58 pm 1697572689
Really, all my grocery budget does this day is supply us with fresh or frozen produce, the occasional box of on sale cereal, dairy, eggs, seasonings, nuts, peanut butter grains, tomato sauce, baking supplies (yeast, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa, pure vanilla extract, chocolate chips), canning supplies, food to be canned when I run out of what I grew or didn't grow something, and sometimes stuff from the deli and bakery section, usually just bread, but sometimes sliced cheese. We have a bucket of flour, a bucket of sugar, a bucket of oatmeal, and a bucket of rice that we are still working our way through.
The less time I have to spend in the grocery store the better. I am going to look at Azure Standard to see about if they have buckets of staples or if I will just have to continue to make my own buckets with good products. I used to get them from Thrive Life, but they quit carrying them sometime during the first year of Covid, so I quit being a distributor. Most people wanted the staples and in buckets. You can't even get half the staples anymore and now they are twice the price. Cheaper to put my own stuff together.