My Budget: January

I decided at the beginning of the year to set a goal of $200 per month for all of our groceries, household supplies & toiletries. (We are a family of three.) I also decided to start keeping a spreadsheet to track how much we spend eating out. I predicted that writing things down would actually help us spend less, and I was right!


Total spent in January on groceries: $197.87
Total saved in January on groceries: $523.58 (72.6%)

We did pretty good here! This included some frozen chicken stock-up (when Fresh Market had their 10 lb boxes for $13.90) and all of The Bambina's soy milk that we buy in bulk at Costco. (But hey, at least we're finally off soy formula -- hooray!)


Total spent in January eating out: $59.34

I'm actually pretty pleased with this number. This included our yearly eat-out with my hubby's sisters that we do every January ($30), two dinners we ate out using Groupons or City Deals Certificates, and the rest were small work lunches on days hubby was outside the office.

Every so often my hubby will come home from work exhausted, and if I haven't started dinner yet he'll say, "let's just go to Carl's Jr!" because it's his favorite. (Does anyone else's hubby do this!?) Every time he made that request in January, I asked him if he wanted to know the status of our eat out budget. It put the kabosh on his Carl's Jr. ideas every time! (My hubby is Mr. frugal.) So I was right -- writing it down did help us spend less.

The other perk of all this was that at the end of the month, hubby was pleased with the size of the credit card bill (which is where we put all the groceries & eating out so we can get reward points). So it was a good thing! We're going to keep up this eat out spreadsheet.

How are you all doing with your budgets? Have you set goals for this year? If not, do it! I predict that writing down what you spend will help you spend less, too!