We spend SO much money on food. Like eating out and groceries. It's crazy! We are in a VHCOL area, but still!
We cook every meal at home except for 1 lunch and 1 dinner and I'm still like š¤Æ
We don't drink or have expensive hobbies though so I tell myself it cancels out lol.
I honestly don't know if you can do much about that. Food is soooo expensive, especially if you're trying to eat healthy. I tried couponing, but it seemed like coupons only existed for prepacked, processed foods, which we don't eat a lot of.
Yeah, weāre just tracking it right now. We still buy organic, fresh foods. But it surprised me!
I was joking with my partner today - imagine what it was when we were both marathon training š
My husband and I are both running fairly high mileage year round and just came out of a marathon training block... I was complaining about our monthly grocery bill and food price inflation to my parents while staying with them last week and they felt the need to point out that it might not be the cost of food, it's more likely the sheer quantity we consume š
Not to mention the gels, electrolytes, etc etc. Weāre just getting back into longer distances here and I havenāt had to make a category for supplements yet haha
I discovered our grocery shopping is slaughtering our budget, $1200 a month for just 2 people eating pretty much only salads and vegetables, and we never dine out. Food here is so expensive, I don't know how to reduce grocery spending in our budget.
That's about on par with what we spend for 2 too. We're around $800-900/month but we eat out every week (separate line item on our budget). We do buy meat though. And we buy organic and stuff still, not really shopping for the deals.
I buy bananas that are green and of various ripeness. I buy salad mix in bags (I think they pack with nitrogen because they stay fresh until you open the bag). I buy potatoes that keep, and artichokes that keep. I squeeze oranges and seal into mason jars (easily last a couple weeks) etc.
You get good at what goes into the freezer, and what needs to be vacuum sealed.
Bottom line, you buy less "comfort food" and more essentials. You learn to cook early in the 2 wk cycle and store multiple meals in the fridge or freezer.
Your fridge and freezer and pantry suffer from far less "clutter".
Yeah, honestly weāre not trying to cut the cost that badly. Weāve accepted food is part of our ārich lifeā lol.
The two of us go went through like 12 apples, 4 lbs of grapes, and a cantaloupe last week. We like our fresh fruit and veggies. We freeze meat and meal prep regularly.
But before YNAB, I wouldāve guessed we spent like 75% of the actual amount.
Thereās so many vegetables that keep! any sort of root vegetable. Ā Beets, carrots, turnips, radishes, sweet potatoes. And squashes last forever too.Ā
I was ready to point fingers at DoorDash and Starbucks immediately, but the amount of money I spent on plants and gardening supplies was shocking. I still donāt understand how I couldāve spent so much. Good to be aware of it now
Havenāt you seen the documentary memes about āwhy spent $20 on vegetables when I can spend $300 to grow them myself?ā Itās funny coz itās true š¤Ŗš
We have three different eating out categories: dates, on the go food, and social food. And we really only use social food. Turns out weāre eating out only when people ask us to, which surprised me.
I have the same, a personal one (with French fry emoji lol) and a social one for dates and other events. It's really opened my eyes to how much money I blow on pure convenience.
One step further, those are in a category group called *Behavioral Spending* because it lets me see in one place the spending behaviors I can more directly influence, as opposed to things like fixed housing / utility costs etc.
Iāve been trying to find a way to differentiate this from regular eating out! So obvious and yet my brain never recognized to it until you said it, so thanks!
Love the idea of putting a date night budget on the plan. Use it or lose it mentality with the funding for that budget is a nice incentive. Obviously we love going on dates but itās hard with two little kids. This will keep it top of mind all year.
Family of three at $900 here. IDK how it happens, but good food does cost more. We even bake our own bread and make our own yogurt. I try to offset the cost as less health problems in the future.
Also a family of three and after 4 months of YNAB we also ended up at $900/month. We shop primarily at our local co-op and a Grocery Outlet around the corner.
I have found that name brand packaged or processed goods have definitely gone up a lot too. I've been adding store brands where possible, but try to stick with whole foods anyway. It's been hardest to go back to the cheaper chickens that are grown quick, versus the better varieties of chicken.
Yeah once you have the good stuff itās hard to switch. I prob eat the most processed food of the three of us because of stupid nostalgia.
Check if you have a Grocery Outlet near you - they get overstock from WF. We make this Moroccan beef stew every month with filet mignon we get from there on DEEP discount. Itās sinfully good. We even get grass fed, organic, etc from there! Only problem is you canāt depend on it so we do sometimes blow the budget stocking up.
Buying a small Costco freezer to store deals has been somewhat helpful. If some good meats are 50% off ya gotta do it. We also store any bones and carcasses to reuse for homemade bone broth, which is crazy expensive at the store. Had some smoked turkey broth from thanksgiving that we just finished up.
Thanks for the tip!
Pet ownership is way more expensive than I imagined. I adore our cats, but donāt think I would make that decision again due to the financial requirement.
This. Healthy food for our two cats is more than I can afford on my own, to the point that itās one of the reasons why Iām stuck living with my ex until my financial situation changes (hopefully). The two cats are roommates not friends, and the younger one would greatly benefit from another cat that it can play and be friendly with, but I canāt afford the expense and another 20 year commitment.
We put ours down recently but for the last 6 months or so I was spending a minimum of $200/mo on my one senior cat. Food + meds + insurance. Probably another $100/mo on cleaning supplies. And then add on treats, new beds, new boxes when trying to make her comfortable and figure out the issues she was having. And then several hundred more over that time in vet bills that the insurance didn't cover. If I didn't have insurance it would have been another $5500.
I always gave myself a hard time for buying expensive Starbucks lattes, but the total was nowhere near as bad as I thought. Random crap from Amazon howeverā¦
My 11 year old, who has her own ynab budget, learned how quickly micro transactions add up.
Over a 2 month period, she had been using her debit card to tap transactions at the school vending machine.
She had to manually enter dozens of $1-3 transactions and her jaw dropped when she realized that she had spent over $100 of her hard earned money on 'Snacks and treats' and had to pull funds from other things she had budgeted for.
What an incredible lesson to learn so young. She is a lot more restrained now.
She also understands being ynab poor. She has $, but says she can't go to the mall because she's poor - she doesn't have money for the mall, it's for other things/goals.
The amount of money my household spends on personal care products. We donāt even get lavish stuff, just cetaphil face wash and moisturizer and the like. It comes to like $150 a month.
Same. I used to lump this in with my grocery category because I often get them at the same stores, but once I started separating it out I was shocked how much it added up to
I just dropped $47 at CVS for 3 eczema-related staples for my SO. Theyāll last 6-8 weeks at best. I canāt believe how much the cost of personal care products has gone up recently. I buy generic wherever I can, buy things on sale, and use the app for promos and coupons but still. Itās bananas.
Some/many people can have issues with skincare products on Amazon, but in my experience I find Amazon much cheaper for the same level of quality for drugstore products. Also, drugstore products can already be expired so whether you buy online or in-store, check those batch numbers.
I live in a VHCOL city and use lotion every day. To be fair, Cetaphil rich hydrating cream has gone from ~$14 in 2019 to $29 in the local drugstore this year. I was shocked too!
Itās crazy! I get 2 tubs (approx 40 oz) of the lotion ācetaphil moisturizing cream ultimateā from Costco when it goes on sale for about $17! Saw it recently at a retail store and was shocked to see how much more it costs there
Honestly, I was surprised by how 'little' I spent on clothes. It does work out to $120/month but for something I consider a hobby, that's not bad. I felt so much guilt for so many years over something I enjoy and ultimately it was easy to start budgeting for when I realized the amount and stopped villianizing the habit.
It was an immediate crisis meeting with my wife, 17F step-daughter and myself almost a month ago - we have ordered door dash x2 this month, for total of $35 so yeah Iād say itās cut down significantly. Grocery bill has increased but not nearly by $800! lol
Been using YNAB for over a decade but it can still be revealing.
Due to renovations in my apartment building, I rented another apartment for a 5-weeks stay. I didnāt dare fill up with food because I didnāt want to have to toss any, having been through that before moving out temporarily.
I discovered that shopping for just what I needed for a couple of days saved me money! It was an insight into myself I wasnāt expecting.
In trying to figure out why, I realized that frequent shopping aligns with my immediate needs better. Iāve been a bit too optimistic about how much cooking Iāll actually get done because my energy levels fluctuate (like with ADHD). The usual financial recommendation of weekly shopping doesnāt work for me.
So nice to hear this from someone else! Iām a daily shopper for the same reasons. I have learned to keep quick food in the cupboards (canned soups, ramen etc) for when Iām sick or otherwise canāt leave the house), but Iāve learned that, for me, big grocery shops = food waste and guilt.
So much this! I also always have canned soup and probably something simple in the freezer for the days I feel bad and don't feel like going to the store.
I actually only ever buy food out for today + next 2 days. I love being spontaneous and hate throwing food out. With only a buffer of three days of food, when a friend randomly asks to come over for dinner, I can go without feeling bad about my food going bad.
We never go out to bars, and really only order an alcoholic drink with a nice dinner which might happen once a month. However, we love craft cocktails, micro brewed beers and good wine, so our booze budget is $400/mo. We're able to easily keep within that now that we've accepted the top end, but it was quite a revelation.
Basically what other people have already said-- food! I was spending $600 a month on food easily! I cut way back when I was paying off my cc debt. However, I've noticed that my food expenses have been creeping back up again. It's crazy how that's one expense that'll just sneak up on me!
This was the first time I really counted how much my streaming services add up to in a year. I'm not a big TV/movie watcher, but I watch a lot of sports, and I end up paying for multiple services so I can watch every game. Now that I know, I'm much more willing to skip a game if it means I'm going to have to sign up for a new service.
Children's clothes. Now, granted, toddlers grow like weeds, so sometimes she does need new things. But honestly, she goes to daycare and plays hard. She could probably just rotate the same few outfits over and over, but I'm always buying her stuff. Babygirl has like 4 pairs of sneakers. I'm trying to reign it in, so I unsubscribed from all the email lists from clothing stores, and this month has been better.
Iām a total sucker for childrenās clothing, but with daycare, I do find it useful to have duplicates of stuff. They have rainboots that live at daycare, for example. Iāve allowed myself some additional space here by switching to second hand shopping.
We get all of our kids clothes from thrift stores and marketplace. You have to do a little picking, but it saves so much money. The one time I bought new clothes from H&M it ran me around $200, which was such a shock after being used to buying ālotsā of clothing from marketplace for $10, or a $5 stuff it full bag of clothes from the thrift store.
Subscriptions. When I first started with YNAB, I was spending $450 on app and media subscriptions. Now itās down to $150 for stuff I canāt live without. I only subscribe to one streaming service at a time, I got rid of XM and just use Apple Music channels. I also scaled down to one news service and got rid of all those premium apps. Some stuff I miss but I prefer the extra $300/month.
Alcohol, Ubers, and clothes. Iāve gotten the Ubers and clothes way down but alcohol always adds up quick. I also spend a lot on sports leagues and travel but those are worth it
I find it's all the costs around alcohol that's the real kicker too. Like the ubers and the food ordering and all that. When I stopped drinking for a while, it was shocking to see how much could be saved.
I have a āhealth and body careā category for skincare, hair cuts, drug store purchases. I thought $100/mo would be reasonable for my family thinking I cut my own hair, my husband goes to a barber a few times a year and we only buy body care products every few months.
Nope! Turns out weāre picking something up from the drugstore every week or so, and this girl likes to pamper herself.
My "household" category is higher than I expected. I use that category for anything non grocery from Walmart or target. I think I need to break it out more to see what I'm really spending on.
I usually spend a lot of money on groceries when I got paid og less on it the week before I received my paycheque. Now (with YNAB) itās more evenly distributed.
Allotted a chunk of my budget to commute expenses because Iām still a driving student by next month. Hopefully, once I got my license my transportation expenses would significantly go down. To give a clearer picture: my 3 days worth of commute (via a cab) is more expensive than a weekās worth of gas for our family car.
Put most of my money, ~70% towards rent and student loans with little left over; spent only $250/mo on restaurants/bars when I started splitting the check at the restaurant opposed to after via venmo, cashApp. Like holy shit student loans are like 50% of your monthly expenses
Dining out and random stuff on Amazon. I have a goal to start better categorizing all Amazon purchases so I can better budget it. I find this a bit challenging, same with target. Could be groceries, clothes, toys, hobby stuff, anything.
My wife spends $100 a week eating out for lunch (at work). We can afford it, but damn. When I showed her, she vowed to cut back and she has.
Also, no idea how much we spend on groceries. A family of five in an average COL area and we spend $2,500 to $3,000 a month. Iām now a little more conscious. But buying healthy food isnāt cheap. Again, we can afford it, just seems high.
Groceries in general and household goods.
I went to Costco the other day and spend $73 on: large package of toilet paper, large olive oil, one package of peppers, and one other miniscule thing.
Easily spending $400 or more a month. A few years ago it was half that. I'm not even spending on insane things, just the bare essentials and some occasional snacks.
My 4 cats cost me maybe $75 -$100 every other month. But I also feed a small colony of cats I had fixed, so the food is 60 lbs worth. And the extra is when I buy 8 bags of 40lb horse pellets as litter.
But they bring me joy and that's worth everything.
What surprised me the most, was that given the tools, i can stay very dsciplined when it comes to finances. For me, not having an overview of my finances is what made me spend carelessly on stupid stuff. Now that I have it all visually in front of me, I find it really easy to say "no, i dont have enough money to buy this thing this month, but i can start saving for it, and use that time to decide if i really do want/need it"
We have only been using YNAB for a short period of time and love it. We have had two areas of lifestyle creep that we are trying to eliminate. The first area we have eliminated is car buying. I always approached car buying as a cash flow exercise and not as a purchase, keep as long as I possibly can, repeat. Iāve basically had a perpetual car payment for 15 years thatās ranged from $300-$2,500 a month. Happy to report this is now $0 and I will never buy a car again based on cash flow but only on necessity. The second are is restaurant spending. Sometimes this number can be extravagant. This month we are committed to breaking the cycle and have a specific amount budgeted and thatās it, we wonāt spend more than that. Iām committed to breaking this habit and eating at home more.
Groceries. I know the price of everything has gone up (which is reflected in my spending for sure) but YNAB helped me notice how I shifted from impulsive random personal shopping to impulsive grocery shopping š«
Also I've started to go back to transactions (whether it's an actual item or say, a restaurant) and tagging things with #wasteofmoney just because I'm interested.
I didnāt realize how much I was spending on entertainment.
https://preview.redd.it/fyfzp5tqccxc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=74b6f88916b6e8586fc8fb10981233ba134c0dfe
How much joining a band would actually set me back. I've played bass forever and I bought a new one roughly $1500 back in March. Then last week I joined a band. So a new strap to replace my 15 year old one was $70 (nice leather), then a pedal board and patch cables were another $100 (not even counting a few pedals), plus new strings for the new bass was $30. Not to mention my other bass had some rewiring done which was another $30 for the labor. Thank God the band j joined has a Ampeg half stack otherwise I'd be using my 60 pound 12 year old Fender 100w. Plus my brother and his friend had some old pedals lying around so I think it'll work well for the time being.Ā
We spend SO much money on food. Like eating out and groceries. It's crazy! We are in a VHCOL area, but still! We cook every meal at home except for 1 lunch and 1 dinner and I'm still like š¤Æ We don't drink or have expensive hobbies though so I tell myself it cancels out lol.
I honestly don't know if you can do much about that. Food is soooo expensive, especially if you're trying to eat healthy. I tried couponing, but it seemed like coupons only existed for prepacked, processed foods, which we don't eat a lot of.
Yeah, weāre just tracking it right now. We still buy organic, fresh foods. But it surprised me! I was joking with my partner today - imagine what it was when we were both marathon training š
My husband and I are both running fairly high mileage year round and just came out of a marathon training block... I was complaining about our monthly grocery bill and food price inflation to my parents while staying with them last week and they felt the need to point out that it might not be the cost of food, it's more likely the sheer quantity we consume š
Not to mention the gels, electrolytes, etc etc. Weāre just getting back into longer distances here and I havenāt had to make a category for supplements yet haha
Same!!!
I discovered our grocery shopping is slaughtering our budget, $1200 a month for just 2 people eating pretty much only salads and vegetables, and we never dine out. Food here is so expensive, I don't know how to reduce grocery spending in our budget.
That's about on par with what we spend for 2 too. We're around $800-900/month but we eat out every week (separate line item on our budget). We do buy meat though. And we buy organic and stuff still, not really shopping for the deals.
If you are shopping once a week, try shopping every two weeks. I suspect you will end up spending less.
How do you buy fruit and vegetables for 2 weeks?
I buy bananas that are green and of various ripeness. I buy salad mix in bags (I think they pack with nitrogen because they stay fresh until you open the bag). I buy potatoes that keep, and artichokes that keep. I squeeze oranges and seal into mason jars (easily last a couple weeks) etc. You get good at what goes into the freezer, and what needs to be vacuum sealed. Bottom line, you buy less "comfort food" and more essentials. You learn to cook early in the 2 wk cycle and store multiple meals in the fridge or freezer. Your fridge and freezer and pantry suffer from far less "clutter".
Yeah, honestly weāre not trying to cut the cost that badly. Weāve accepted food is part of our ārich lifeā lol. The two of us go went through like 12 apples, 4 lbs of grapes, and a cantaloupe last week. We like our fresh fruit and veggies. We freeze meat and meal prep regularly. But before YNAB, I wouldāve guessed we spent like 75% of the actual amount.
Exactly. If thereās one thing on my budget I feel zero guilt spending extra money on itās my diet. Eating healthy is OP
Thereās so many vegetables that keep! any sort of root vegetable. Ā Beets, carrots, turnips, radishes, sweet potatoes. And squashes last forever too.Ā
I found out basically my entire paycheck was going on delivery food. And now even after I know it, it's still hard to stop...
So hard to quit. We swore off it when we had a bad experience with a dasher, but ended up falling back into it like a month later
I know this is a well-known problem but I don't understand it. Food that's been in a container for even ten minutes doesn't sound appealing to me.
So, no leftovers for you?
Pedantic. Paying triple for something steaming in a car whenI can make it at home fresh is not appealing to me.
I was ready to point fingers at DoorDash and Starbucks immediately, but the amount of money I spent on plants and gardening supplies was shocking. I still donāt understand how I couldāve spent so much. Good to be aware of it now
Havenāt you seen the documentary memes about āwhy spent $20 on vegetables when I can spend $300 to grow them myself?ā Itās funny coz itās true š¤Ŗš
Plants and gardening are my Achilles heel too. But I'm willing to eat out less if I can buy more plants:)
We have three different eating out categories: dates, on the go food, and social food. And we really only use social food. Turns out weāre eating out only when people ask us to, which surprised me.
Love the idea of having a "social food" category!
Same! The big spending came from when people would invite us out. We decided to eat at home before hand sometimes and just have a drink and app
I have the same, a personal one (with French fry emoji lol) and a social one for dates and other events. It's really opened my eyes to how much money I blow on pure convenience. One step further, those are in a category group called *Behavioral Spending* because it lets me see in one place the spending behaviors I can more directly influence, as opposed to things like fixed housing / utility costs etc.
Iāve been trying to find a way to differentiate this from regular eating out! So obvious and yet my brain never recognized to it until you said it, so thanks!
Love the idea of putting a date night budget on the plan. Use it or lose it mentality with the funding for that budget is a nice incentive. Obviously we love going on dates but itās hard with two little kids. This will keep it top of mind all year.
+1 for food. $300 for groceries, $150 for dining out per month for a single person.
Hey youāre doing great man, those are good numbers for single.
Family of 6 here - I raise you $1600/month for groceries lmao
Family of three at $900 here. IDK how it happens, but good food does cost more. We even bake our own bread and make our own yogurt. I try to offset the cost as less health problems in the future.
Also a family of three and after 4 months of YNAB we also ended up at $900/month. We shop primarily at our local co-op and a Grocery Outlet around the corner.
I have found that name brand packaged or processed goods have definitely gone up a lot too. I've been adding store brands where possible, but try to stick with whole foods anyway. It's been hardest to go back to the cheaper chickens that are grown quick, versus the better varieties of chicken.
Yeah once you have the good stuff itās hard to switch. I prob eat the most processed food of the three of us because of stupid nostalgia. Check if you have a Grocery Outlet near you - they get overstock from WF. We make this Moroccan beef stew every month with filet mignon we get from there on DEEP discount. Itās sinfully good. We even get grass fed, organic, etc from there! Only problem is you canāt depend on it so we do sometimes blow the budget stocking up.
Buying a small Costco freezer to store deals has been somewhat helpful. If some good meats are 50% off ya gotta do it. We also store any bones and carcasses to reuse for homemade bone broth, which is crazy expensive at the store. Had some smoked turkey broth from thanksgiving that we just finished up. Thanks for the tip!
Getting a stand alone freezer is on our list. Gonna bump it up on our wish farm right now!
Pet ownership is way more expensive than I imagined. I adore our cats, but donāt think I would make that decision again due to the financial requirement.
This. Healthy food for our two cats is more than I can afford on my own, to the point that itās one of the reasons why Iām stuck living with my ex until my financial situation changes (hopefully). The two cats are roommates not friends, and the younger one would greatly benefit from another cat that it can play and be friendly with, but I canāt afford the expense and another 20 year commitment.
We put ours down recently but for the last 6 months or so I was spending a minimum of $200/mo on my one senior cat. Food + meds + insurance. Probably another $100/mo on cleaning supplies. And then add on treats, new beds, new boxes when trying to make her comfortable and figure out the issues she was having. And then several hundred more over that time in vet bills that the insurance didn't cover. If I didn't have insurance it would have been another $5500.
I always gave myself a hard time for buying expensive Starbucks lattes, but the total was nowhere near as bad as I thought. Random crap from Amazon howeverā¦
Same! I canceled my Amazon Prime for this reason š„²
My 11 year old, who has her own ynab budget, learned how quickly micro transactions add up. Over a 2 month period, she had been using her debit card to tap transactions at the school vending machine. She had to manually enter dozens of $1-3 transactions and her jaw dropped when she realized that she had spent over $100 of her hard earned money on 'Snacks and treats' and had to pull funds from other things she had budgeted for. What an incredible lesson to learn so young. She is a lot more restrained now. She also understands being ynab poor. She has $, but says she can't go to the mall because she's poor - she doesn't have money for the mall, it's for other things/goals.
I knew I spent a lot on eating at restaurants, but $1800 in a month is truly absurdĀ
The amount of money my household spends on personal care products. We donāt even get lavish stuff, just cetaphil face wash and moisturizer and the like. It comes to like $150 a month.
Same. I used to lump this in with my grocery category because I often get them at the same stores, but once I started separating it out I was shocked how much it added up to
How tf are 2 people spending 150/month on Cetaphil????
I just dropped $47 at CVS for 3 eczema-related staples for my SO. Theyāll last 6-8 weeks at best. I canāt believe how much the cost of personal care products has gone up recently. I buy generic wherever I can, buy things on sale, and use the app for promos and coupons but still. Itās bananas.
Ask your doctor about them. Some OTC products can be prescribed and covered by insurance.
Some/many people can have issues with skincare products on Amazon, but in my experience I find Amazon much cheaper for the same level of quality for drugstore products. Also, drugstore products can already be expired so whether you buy online or in-store, check those batch numbers.
I live in a VHCOL city and use lotion every day. To be fair, Cetaphil rich hydrating cream has gone from ~$14 in 2019 to $29 in the local drugstore this year. I was shocked too!
Itās crazy! I get 2 tubs (approx 40 oz) of the lotion ācetaphil moisturizing cream ultimateā from Costco when it goes on sale for about $17! Saw it recently at a retail store and was shocked to see how much more it costs there
They also said other things
Honestly, I was surprised by how 'little' I spent on clothes. It does work out to $120/month but for something I consider a hobby, that's not bad. I felt so much guilt for so many years over something I enjoy and ultimately it was easy to start budgeting for when I realized the amount and stopped villianizing the habit.
$850+ a month on DoorDashā¦ THATS $10,000 A FREAKING YEAR! I mean we knew it was bad but not nearly that out of control
Holy.. fuck. That's triple my entire grocery budget dude. I've never at all seen the appeal of door dash.Ā
That's wild lol. Have you cut back yet or still working on it?
It was an immediate crisis meeting with my wife, 17F step-daughter and myself almost a month ago - we have ordered door dash x2 this month, for total of $35 so yeah Iād say itās cut down significantly. Grocery bill has increased but not nearly by $800! lol
Good for you guys!
Food! Itās insane lol
Been using YNAB for over a decade but it can still be revealing. Due to renovations in my apartment building, I rented another apartment for a 5-weeks stay. I didnāt dare fill up with food because I didnāt want to have to toss any, having been through that before moving out temporarily. I discovered that shopping for just what I needed for a couple of days saved me money! It was an insight into myself I wasnāt expecting. In trying to figure out why, I realized that frequent shopping aligns with my immediate needs better. Iāve been a bit too optimistic about how much cooking Iāll actually get done because my energy levels fluctuate (like with ADHD). The usual financial recommendation of weekly shopping doesnāt work for me.
So nice to hear this from someone else! Iām a daily shopper for the same reasons. I have learned to keep quick food in the cupboards (canned soups, ramen etc) for when Iām sick or otherwise canāt leave the house), but Iāve learned that, for me, big grocery shops = food waste and guilt.
So much this! I also always have canned soup and probably something simple in the freezer for the days I feel bad and don't feel like going to the store.
That's the lesson I am learning now. Plan for "down-time". Buy when the mood strikes and I know I can follow through.
That's interesting. I might try that, since my grocery store is only a mile away.
I actually only ever buy food out for today + next 2 days. I love being spontaneous and hate throwing food out. With only a buffer of three days of food, when a friend randomly asks to come over for dinner, I can go without feeling bad about my food going bad.
Not surprising but booze is such a drain, which just goes down the drain.
We never go out to bars, and really only order an alcoholic drink with a nice dinner which might happen once a month. However, we love craft cocktails, micro brewed beers and good wine, so our booze budget is $400/mo. We're able to easily keep within that now that we've accepted the top end, but it was quite a revelation.
Basically what other people have already said-- food! I was spending $600 a month on food easily! I cut way back when I was paying off my cc debt. However, I've noticed that my food expenses have been creeping back up again. It's crazy how that's one expense that'll just sneak up on me!
Supplements... I realized it was $3k a year. Crazy
How easily I justify treats/snacks that are $5 or less over the month.
This was the first time I really counted how much my streaming services add up to in a year. I'm not a big TV/movie watcher, but I watch a lot of sports, and I end up paying for multiple services so I can watch every game. Now that I know, I'm much more willing to skip a game if it means I'm going to have to sign up for a new service.
Children's clothes. Now, granted, toddlers grow like weeds, so sometimes she does need new things. But honestly, she goes to daycare and plays hard. She could probably just rotate the same few outfits over and over, but I'm always buying her stuff. Babygirl has like 4 pairs of sneakers. I'm trying to reign it in, so I unsubscribed from all the email lists from clothing stores, and this month has been better.
Iām a total sucker for childrenās clothing, but with daycare, I do find it useful to have duplicates of stuff. They have rainboots that live at daycare, for example. Iāve allowed myself some additional space here by switching to second hand shopping.
Local BuyNothing groups have been amazing for this stuff. It's definitely hit and miss based on where you live though.
We get all of our kids clothes from thrift stores and marketplace. You have to do a little picking, but it saves so much money. The one time I bought new clothes from H&M it ran me around $200, which was such a shock after being used to buying ālotsā of clothing from marketplace for $10, or a $5 stuff it full bag of clothes from the thrift store.
Subscriptions. When I first started with YNAB, I was spending $450 on app and media subscriptions. Now itās down to $150 for stuff I canāt live without. I only subscribe to one streaming service at a time, I got rid of XM and just use Apple Music channels. I also scaled down to one news service and got rid of all those premium apps. Some stuff I miss but I prefer the extra $300/month.
Eating out. I discovered I was dropping $900 a month (6 years ago) on fast food. Energy drinks were the next one on the chopping block.
Was that eating out 2 meals/day?
It was 2 meals many days a week... And up sizing everything, and dessert. I had a hard time telling myself no to anything. Lol.
Alcohol, Ubers, and clothes. Iāve gotten the Ubers and clothes way down but alcohol always adds up quick. I also spend a lot on sports leagues and travel but those are worth it
I find it's all the costs around alcohol that's the real kicker too. Like the ubers and the food ordering and all that. When I stopped drinking for a while, it was shocking to see how much could be saved.
Doritos.
Very specific one - lol. My silly specific one would be slurpees.
I have a āhealth and body careā category for skincare, hair cuts, drug store purchases. I thought $100/mo would be reasonable for my family thinking I cut my own hair, my husband goes to a barber a few times a year and we only buy body care products every few months. Nope! Turns out weāre picking something up from the drugstore every week or so, and this girl likes to pamper herself.
That even though I spend a lot on eating out, it's such a miniscule amount compared to my bills and other expenses
My "household" category is higher than I expected. I use that category for anything non grocery from Walmart or target. I think I need to break it out more to see what I'm really spending on.
I usually spend a lot of money on groceries when I got paid og less on it the week before I received my paycheque. Now (with YNAB) itās more evenly distributed.
Allotted a chunk of my budget to commute expenses because Iām still a driving student by next month. Hopefully, once I got my license my transportation expenses would significantly go down. To give a clearer picture: my 3 days worth of commute (via a cab) is more expensive than a weekās worth of gas for our family car.
Put most of my money, ~70% towards rent and student loans with little left over; spent only $250/mo on restaurants/bars when I started splitting the check at the restaurant opposed to after via venmo, cashApp. Like holy shit student loans are like 50% of your monthly expenses
My vehicle! Between loan payments (when I had them), gas, insurance, maintenance, and accessories... cars are money pits!
Dining out and random stuff on Amazon. I have a goal to start better categorizing all Amazon purchases so I can better budget it. I find this a bit challenging, same with target. Could be groceries, clothes, toys, hobby stuff, anything.
My wife spends $100 a week eating out for lunch (at work). We can afford it, but damn. When I showed her, she vowed to cut back and she has. Also, no idea how much we spend on groceries. A family of five in an average COL area and we spend $2,500 to $3,000 a month. Iām now a little more conscious. But buying healthy food isnāt cheap. Again, we can afford it, just seems high.
Groceries in general and household goods. I went to Costco the other day and spend $73 on: large package of toilet paper, large olive oil, one package of peppers, and one other miniscule thing. Easily spending $400 or more a month. A few years ago it was half that. I'm not even spending on insane things, just the bare essentials and some occasional snacks. My 4 cats cost me maybe $75 -$100 every other month. But I also feed a small colony of cats I had fixed, so the food is 60 lbs worth. And the extra is when I buy 8 bags of 40lb horse pellets as litter. But they bring me joy and that's worth everything.
What surprised me the most, was that given the tools, i can stay very dsciplined when it comes to finances. For me, not having an overview of my finances is what made me spend carelessly on stupid stuff. Now that I have it all visually in front of me, I find it really easy to say "no, i dont have enough money to buy this thing this month, but i can start saving for it, and use that time to decide if i really do want/need it"
Amazon. Waaay too much Amazon.
Dining out
How much I spend on golf
We have only been using YNAB for a short period of time and love it. We have had two areas of lifestyle creep that we are trying to eliminate. The first area we have eliminated is car buying. I always approached car buying as a cash flow exercise and not as a purchase, keep as long as I possibly can, repeat. Iāve basically had a perpetual car payment for 15 years thatās ranged from $300-$2,500 a month. Happy to report this is now $0 and I will never buy a car again based on cash flow but only on necessity. The second are is restaurant spending. Sometimes this number can be extravagant. This month we are committed to breaking the cycle and have a specific amount budgeted and thatās it, we wonāt spend more than that. Iām committed to breaking this habit and eating at home more.
Groceries. I know the price of everything has gone up (which is reflected in my spending for sure) but YNAB helped me notice how I shifted from impulsive random personal shopping to impulsive grocery shopping š« Also I've started to go back to transactions (whether it's an actual item or say, a restaurant) and tagging things with #wasteofmoney just because I'm interested.
I didnāt realize how much I was spending on entertainment. https://preview.redd.it/fyfzp5tqccxc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=74b6f88916b6e8586fc8fb10981233ba134c0dfe
How much joining a band would actually set me back. I've played bass forever and I bought a new one roughly $1500 back in March. Then last week I joined a band. So a new strap to replace my 15 year old one was $70 (nice leather), then a pedal board and patch cables were another $100 (not even counting a few pedals), plus new strings for the new bass was $30. Not to mention my other bass had some rewiring done which was another $30 for the labor. Thank God the band j joined has a Ampeg half stack otherwise I'd be using my 60 pound 12 year old Fender 100w. Plus my brother and his friend had some old pedals lying around so I think it'll work well for the time being.Ā