Budgeting and Meal Planning

I know over the last year or so I have written a couple of posts about budgeting and working to save some money. Well on that exciting front, I have some neat news to report. We have started to use an app called YNAB (You Need A Budget) and it has been life changing. In my last blog post about saving money I talked about emptying out your pantry and how using up your food is helpful in saving money. I need to plan this next week to work to do that again … purge the items that you have accumulated over the last few weeks and use up literally ALL the things in the refrigerator and pantry.

What we have been focusing over the last month or two has been eating out less. I have worked to meal plan over the years, but I have been using a new list from The Happy Planner and I love it. My mother-in-law gave me this planner and I left it on my desk for awhile, but I picked it up again in the last couple of months and I am obsessed with it. It has been so helpful to have a grocery list on one side and then a meal planning list on the other side. I take the list with me to the store, purchase ONLY the items on the list and then use the meal planning side during the week at home. Then as we make each item I check off that meal and it helps me keep track of what else I have to prepare for the week. I don’t get caught up in what day I prepare what food items. With this new list, we have been better about eating at home and not eating out as much. The combination of using YNAB and then meal planning has really helped us saving money.

We have been budgeting groceries, household items and alcohol separately. This has been helpful as well to see where our money goes throughout the month. We have worked to give each of the dollars we earn a purpose. Then we have the freedom to use that money throughout the month in our budget. If we don’t use that money then we save it for the next month and if we overspend in a certain category then we have to take that money from another area (and give up something else).

I think the main lesson we have learned in the last several month is intentionality. We are trying to be intentional with the money we have and what we decide to spend it on. We stick with our weekly food schedule and I routinely go to the grocery on Sunday afternoons. I make out my list and menu for the week, purchase those items and then bring them home for the week. That is our schedule. My husband has been taking a packed lunch with him and then when he works late he has a microwave dinner he will take with him. That way we all eat out much less and when we do choose to eat out it is a fun thing that we all enjoy!

What ways are planning on working to save money this week? Do you use a budgeting app? What have you found to help you use your money more intentionally?

Emptying Out Your Pantry

It has been a little while since I have posted about budgeting and saving money. I think the last post I did on that topic was back in July of 2018 - to see that post CLICK HERE. Since then we have been able to work towards growing our “rainy day” fund and trying not to dip into savings for any regular expenses. We did have some car repairs in the last half of 2018 for my 2008 Subaru Outback, which was stressful, but that was the major unexpected bill in 2018. We also were anticipating the arrival of baby #2 and trying to make sure we had money saved for those hospital bills. Having a baby is definitely expensive, but thankfully we changed to Chas’ insurance and that helped to decrease the total amount of the bill that we are responsible for after the delivery. We wanted to make sure we were prepared for those anticipated bills.

We started using an budgeting app on our phones - YNAB which stands for You Need A Budget, which is the truth. We needed a better way for us to own the purchases we were making and then work towards some financial goals that we have for ourselves. This app has been fantastic for us! It does cost money for the year, but I know we have saved that money we spent on the app in this first month of using it alone. Both Chas and myself are stubborn and determined so when it comes to seeing those budgeted numbers and trying to stick to them has kind of become a sort of game/challenge.

One of the areas of our budget is grocery items. This excludes any type of household items (cleaning supplies, paper towels, dish soap, etc) and then excludes alcohol as well. We use YNAB for the whole month of April and sure enough we ended up running close to out of budgeted money for food. It was our goal over that last week to eat the food that we had in our pantry, refrigerator and freezer. I am not sure if you have tried to eat ALL the food items that you have tucked away, but it can be a challenge. I managed to find the ramen noodles that were hidden in the way back of the pantry. We ate all the bread, even the heels and then to finish off the week we had waffles for dinner and finished the frozen breakfast sausage that was in the freezer. We cleaned out the refrigerator produce items and had some fruit left, but ate all the veggies but one head of iceberg lettuce. I found a container of maple syrup from a family member that was tucked away as well and we used that instead of purchasing more maple syrup. If you haven’t cleared out your pantry, refrigerator or freezer in awhile I encourage you to give it a try. Work to pull out items that have gotten shoved to the back, check expiration dates, throw out things that have gone bad and eat up some of those food items that you have forgotten you even had.

I found some statistics from The Swag and I just had to share them: Did you know American’s throw out $165 billion of food per year? 40% of food in America is wasted each year. Each year, every American throws out $2,200 worth of food and that is about 300 lbs of food.

Using up the food that your currently have in your pantry is a great way to to economically stick with a budget and to ultimately be a food steward of the things you have. We have so much food waste in America that is it important we all work to decrease how much food we throw out and never eat. So when it comes to saving money and decreasing food waste … clear out your pantry and use up food you have forgotten about and try to eat those items before purchasing more food.

Saving Money and Sticking To A Budget

So this post is late. Normally I post on Mondays and I get that up in the morning or at least by the end of day. Well Monday came and went and I wasn't feel super inspired to write a post. There wasn't anything rolling around in my brain that I thought was super exciting to share with you. 

Well inspiration finally struck today. I figured I wanted to share some honest struggles with you about sticking with a budget and saving money. That is the most exciting things that I have been trying to work on recently. 

Our family has both myself and husband working full time. We make an "ok" salary between the two of us (especially compared to people in other countries we are very blessed). We also have our far share of loans. Between my husband's car and then his school loans we also have a decent chunk of our income going to pay for those things. When it comes to money we have save for retirement, but we needed to do a better job at saving our the rest of our income. The retirement is easy, because it gets deducted from your paycheck and you never see that money, but the money that you actually bring home is tougher to save. I try really hard to cook meals at home, but we do eat out occasionally. But I never thought we spent tons of money, but after some serious self-reflection we are working hard to try to change some habits and actually save more money. 

I have to admit, working at saving money is probably one of the most changing things I have done. I have done lots of hard things, but this has to be the slowest, and the hardest to stick with. We have really ambitious goals for our much money we want to save and to get there we needed to make some adjustments. We have cut out all extra spending. So we will still purchase things if they are needed, but nothing else extra. For example, on Amazon Prime Day we ended purchasing a bowel for William to learn how to use, dog treats for Einstein and a bike rake for Chas' bike so he can bike to work. Nothing extra, nothing that wasn't something we would already plan to purchase. 

Things I have learned ... 

• It is hard. When you try so hard to save and then you don't see that much more money in your account it is depressing. 
• You realize all the little things add up. That cup of coffee, plus that bottle wine or that time you went out to eat can easily add up to $50 without you noticing. 
• You have more free time. When you spend less money, you spend less time at stores and you have more free time. That is always a win. 
• Trying to find things to do that we can do for "free." We have memberships to a couple of museums and we can totally go enjoy those activities because they are already paid for. That is a great way to do something fun, but not spending more money. 
• Hang out with other people who are saving money. That always helps. There is nothing worse than hearing about someone's trip somewhere and you realizing you can't take a trip right now because you are trying to save money. So find some like minded friends and spend time with them! 
• Find ways to make enjoying at home fun. I have been trying to find cheap, healthy ways to prepare food at home and not miss eating out as much. For example, we made homemade Udon soup last weekend and it was amazing and way cheaper than eating out. 

Hopefully this post helps encourage you that if you are interested in working to set a goal, saving money or something else .... that you stick with that goal and moving toward that end goal. It is small steps that hopefully add up over time to big changes. But until then ... we will be hanging out at home, eating popcorn on our couch and watching Netflix and trying not to spend extra money.