Since I have been waiting for my Erin Condren planner, I have done a lot of thinking about organizing, the dreaded budget, and making an actual family binder. While discussing the ECLP (Erin Condren Life Planner) with a dear friend, she came across IHeart Organizing. Well needless to say, I have spent hours on her site, and am madly in love with everything!!! While I did choose to purchase my ECLP, because of the size, I will definitely be printing Jen's budget designs from IHeart Organizing.
Ok, while I know 'how' to budget, I am interested in knowing how you do!! Just a few categories that I'm interested in. Mainly food-imagine that, me worried about food ;)
Groceries:
We feed a family of 4. I have one kiddo that eats everything, and another one that will barely eat ANYthing. I would love to eat clean or juice meals-but with pickier eaters than Evan and I are, we just don't. Aaden eats- any type of cheese, goldfish, teddy grahams (anything along the cracker lines), peaches, oranges, yogurt, and macaroni. Basically that is all. So yay for processed foods... <sarcasm>
We spend anywhere from $100-$120 a week on groceries.
On the weeks Evan is at work, I cook 5-6 times a week. One of those nights is dedicated to pizza!! The other, may just be too worn out to eat.
On the weeks Evan is off... we tend to eat out at LEAST once a day, if not multiple times.
Which brings up my questions:
- How often do you grocery shop?
- How much are you spending?
- How often do you eat out?
For those of you with kiddos at home during the day:
- What do they eat?
- Do you cook every meal while at home?
- Just for fun--- do you take them grocery shopping with you?
Savings:
Starting in September, I plan to 'zero' out our check book each month. Meaning, at the beginning of the month, I will know how each dollar will be spent. This is kind of hard for me to do because Evan puts gas in his car everyday for work, and his schedule comes out weekly, so technically, I have no idea how much he will work. But I'm going to try anyway. I plan to put away a certain percentage in savings.
- How do you determine the dollar amount to save?
- Do you have it direct deposited into a separate account, so you can't see it? (out of sight, out of mind?
- When you want to increase what you're saving, what 'corners' do you cut, in order to save more money?
To me, vehicles, cell phones, health insurance, car insurance, household utilities, etc, these are all things that do not necessarily change... So, of course they are budgeted for, but I'm want to talk about things that CAN be manipulated.
Ok, so yeah, basically--- just trying to see how other do their budget compared to what I do now, and what I 'quote' plan to do in September (that is only like 5 days away).
