No Spend Days

16 out of 31 days in the month were spend days. For the most part these were preparing for November & December expenses. In the lead up to Christmas we will both likely be working 5 days a week – and I might even have to do 6-7. The good thing is the shifts are relatively short – 5-6 hours – but the bad news is I will be working every single weekend while The Other Half will be working all the weekdays.

I took some surprise opportunities both to save money buying in bulk (Petbarn, Nowra Fresh, one of the Aldi trips was 9 punnets of large mushrooms) and to save future time by food prepping and freezing. I also did some Christmas shopping while I had the chance. More about these things later in the post.

My spending saboteur has now returned to Adelaide and I will be busy working, but I do have a couple more Christmas shopping things to do yet.

No Spend Goals For November

I would like to get back to 2 grocery shops maximum each month, and 2 other spend days. As we are already halfway through November, spoiler alert, I have failed the November goal before I even set it. :)

But now, for the great news –

Grocery Spending

Coles – 13.50
Aldi – 477.53
Woolworths – $3
Total grocery spend – $494.03
Grocery cost of $15.93/day.
Bulk food spend – $72.04

The grocery budget for October was $620 and we came in well below that – $125.97 below. I counted the mushroom bulk buy in with the normal Aldi shopping because that is where I got them from. Part of this was using two $10 off my shops at Coles, part of this was eating out of the freezer more, part of this was a couple of meals out which we did not pay for ourselves, and I was at a conference overnight where all my food was included.

Why did I spend $3 at Woolworths? We needed pizza bases, and neither Coles or Aldi had them.

Grocery Spending Goals For November

November has 30 days = $600
Bulk food budget $100

October Thoughts

The big field mushrooms were on special for $2.99 at Aldi when I dropped in there with my Aunt to get something she needed – I had not intended to do any shopping but when I saw that, I thought maybe I could stock up, cook up, freeze up, and be set for a while. That is $1 off per punnet, so I went a bit crazy and bought 9 of them. We had a couple of hours to kill before our nails appointment that day, we went home, rinsed, chopped, cooked and drained all 9 punnets in the space of an hour.

I put them into a very large bowl and into the fridge till I could return. Later that day, The Other Half and I measured out equal amounts and put them into foodsaver bags. I now have 12 vacuum sealed bags of mushrooms which will give me mushroomy Pizza Fridays until mid-January.

We’d bought two bags of kitty litter as we were about to run out on the 20th and a few days later I got this email –

This is a super great deal for us. We’re never going to NOT need kitty litter, we have room to store it in the shed, and $70 off is nearly three of the very large bags for free. I believe we got a deal like this late last year or early this year and this is why running out came to us as a surprise because we are so used to a new bag just being there when we need it. We bought every single bag they had in stock, which was 9 if I recall correctly, and we also got a bag of chicken food to take us over $250 and get the $70 off.

We bought chicken breast in bulk and made up some more kievs, and also chicken pieces as we were running out. I may have to do pieces again this month but if so I will like to buy enough so we don’t have to do it again in 2018.

Realising that Christmas is nearly here when I saw a gift for Mother that would work, I grabbed it. I know what I am going to get for Dad, and I will also pick up some spare things in case we have some extra folks arrive on Christmas Day. I had to buy Christmas themed things for myself for work, as Christmas is a bit of a deal where I am now.

I finally ran out of hair conditioner, so I had to get some more from “The Warehouse” and they had a special deal where if I bought shampoo I got the conditioner for free.

But in good news, I got reimbursed over $150 for some former work clothes purchasing, and I won a $50 visa gift voucher at the work conference.

I had to fill up the car again. This time I had to get the more expensive fuel because the other option was not available, and I was low enough on the gauge that I didn’t want to drive anywhere else. Still, I think filling up twice in a year is pretty awesome – if I need to do it a third time that is ok, and I may need to depending on how much I can carpool to work on the upcoming days.

Keeping the tally – Our record thus far – January, February, April, May, July = nothing bought. March, June, August, September = something bought. Out of 9 months, four = a buy month.

No Spend Days

Clearly that goal of 10 days was an epic fail. :/ 19 spend days.

I have never seen anything like that. :( I will not like to see it again!

No Spend Goals For October

For the remaining three months of the year, the spend goals are grocery shopping only and four spend days a month. My spending saboteur AKA my Aunt has returned but I need to be strong and just say no to.. well, everything.

Grocery Spending

Coles – 132.34
Aldi – 432.09
$total $564.43
18.81/day

Bulk Foods $111.99 <-- Over Budget Our Coles shops should be much less for the remainder of the year - to get our 10,000 points we stocked up on chicken roasts which are now in the freezer, and the only thing we *really* need to buy there these days is eggs, and the occasional vegetable which we couldn't get at Aldi.

Grocery Spending Goals For October

October has 31 days = $620
Bulk food budget $100

September Thoughts

I discovered that the moisturiser which I liked to use on my face was being discontinued this month, which sent me into a bit of a panic. I’m the kind of person who sticks with that thing she likes and if I had known in advance I would have stocked up. By the time I found out it was too late and not available at all.

I have to say I am a bit annoyed with the store because they closed their local store and moved everything into another shop they have, and they promised me faithfully I would still be able to get the things I liked. That has turned out to be a lie. :(

But sometimes one door closes and another door opens. I found a much better cream, which I like a lot more. I’ll tell you about that when I tell you about the Canberra trip.. soon. :)

Keeping the tally – Our record thus far – January, February, April, May, July = nothing bought. March, June, August = something bought. Out of 8 months, three = a buy month.

August while great in many aspects was a tough month for this challenge for many reasons. I actually thought maybe it is time to put the brakes on and quit the challenge. Never quit, never delete, never surrender! I’m going to keep going BUT I do need to recognise that I am not super woman.

August No Spend Days

Yet another spend month. As I mentioned recently I will not begrudge any of it because it has been shopping time – and walking time, and lunching time, and dinner time – spent with a much loved one.

13 days of spending in total *boggle*.

No Spend Goals For September

It would be easy to say lets just give up and not set a goal, but I would like to try and keep spending days to 10 next month. I’m allowing a couple extra as we are travelling to Canberra for 2 nights.

August Grocery Spending

August –
Coles – $131.45
Aldi – $417.95
Woolworths – $11
Total Grocery Spend $560.4
18.07/day

You won’t believe this but I am now so used to shopping once a fortnight only, we completely forgot to spend our $50 at Coles to complete 4 weeks of spending $50. I was so mad at myself. But they’ve offered us the same offer again and we are now two weeks into that one. I’m setting reminders all over the place to make sure we achieve it this time. Mostly I am stocking up on our favourite roasts with these $50 spends as we really do not need much else at Coles these days.

Grocery Spending Goals For September

September has 30 days = $600
Bulk food budget $100

August Thoughts

For the first time in 2018, I put fuel in my car. There has been an increase in driving due to work, plus all the “toodling” my Aunt and I had been doing. I paid the rather obscene price of $1.81 per litre for the really good fuel, as I felt Polo deserved such pampering given the excellent fuel efficiency thus far in 2018. I am sure that the tank will receive at least one more fuel-up in 2018, possibly two given on how much I can carpool to work with others.

The biggest reason August was tough was due to a big increase in the days and hours I am working. There was one week in August where I worked 7 days in a row. Most weeks were at least 5 days of work. When you add in the massive learning curve I have been on learning a new job I had never done before plus all the from-scratch cooking I have to do now that The Other Half needs less sodium, it was a huge month.

Throw on top of that – The Other Half has decided he would like to do some online University studies, which means I lose him – and his chopping skills in the kitchen – for at least 2 hours most weekdays. He is kicking off with an advanced math course for the next 6 months, and then next year he will be starting a degree.

I’m going to increase use of the food processor rather than his chopping and I’m trying to do even more batch cooking where we have leftovers for dinner another day just to give me less time in the kitchen.

Another successful no-buy month. Keeping the tally – Our record thus far – January, February, April, May, July = nothing bought. March, June = something bought. Out of 7 months, two = a buy month.

I did have to buy some clothes for work but I was reimbursed for those. I want to give a shout out to W.Lane and their comfort jeans which don’t really look like jeans at all but are super comfortable for work.

July No Spend Days

Almost made the goal of 7 days. Unfortunately the total was 8.

So on the list of spending, not counted this month will be my dentistry, the dentistry for Happy who broke a tooth, and other cat related vet bills, plus one chook related vet bill. These are things that were necessary and not something I could arrange to pay on specific days.

No Spend Goals For August

I would like to try for 4 spend days in August. We don’t have anything special planned, other than a possible night out in late August. But we do have family visiting and it is my favourite Aunt who loves to shop, so.. crossing my fingers on this one.

July Grocery Spending

Coles sent us a 10,000 points offer and this time we decided to see if we could do it. Three of the weeks were in July.

So how did we do at spending $50? It seems like a small amount but I found it was really difficult to get to that amount. I could usually make $30 in a shop but after that I began to struggle, and I don’t like to pad it out buying extra chicken roasters especially if they are not on special.

Week 1 $55.90 (bulk potatoes & eggs)
Week 2 $56.03 (bulk bread mix & paper towel)
Week 3 $54.52 (bulk a2 milk here instead of Aldi, eggs)

There was also a small shop in the first fortnight before I got the offer which was $15.50.

With Aldi I have been keeping a decent stock of the things we regularly use so we could do a smaller shop for the second fortnight (just $34) and use up all our stocks, buying any extras we needed from Coles. I ran out of pineapple, feta cheese and olives. The last was a good run out because I am now using up stuffed and marinated green olives which are not pizza olives but needed to be eaten.

Grocery Budget for July – $620

Coles – 181.95
Aldi – 327.20
Woolworths – 30.97 total
Total grocery spend – $540.12
Grocery cost of $17.42/day.

Bulk Items Budget = $100
Bath & Body Works bulk toiletries $92

Grocery Spending Goals For August

August has 31 days = $620

July Thoughts

I ran out of freezer mushrooms for the first time in a while. I can’t tell you how awesome it has been to not even have to think about it, to just have them there and available on Pizza day each week.

July was a difficult month teeth wise. I mentioned that I broke off part of my long ago fixed by a root canal but waiting for the restoration tooth and had to finally suck it up and do the restoration.

I did not mention that when we arrived home from our Sydney trip we discovered that Happy had broken off quite a bit of her large canine tooth. You know the ones right at the front that look a bit like vampire teeth? So The Other Half went to google and returned quite upset at some of the horror cat teeth tales he’d seen. It didn’t seem to be bothering her and she certainly was eating well enough but we knew a vet visit was called for.

We learned that root canals for cats are not a done thing for the most part. It is mainly extraction, so that tooth had to come out. She also needed a cleaning – we knew that from our last vet visit – and we found out about Prozym which is something you can put in the water to help keep the teeth cleaner and that will be good for her because she gets tartar building up very easily unlike any of our other cats.

While they were doing the extraction they checked all the other teeth and found another broken one, on the other side of the mouth. She likes to do “crazy run around cat” at super high speeds and we think she’s run into something and that is how this happened. But we weren’t here, so we don’t know for sure.

Let us hope for a less tooth eventful August. :)

June was a spend month, but for the most part it was not technically my money that I was spending, so does it really count? I’m not sure. I will write a separate post on this as there were quite a few things. I received $500 in birthday money, and I spent $485.24 for the month. The spending had some very interesting mental side effects, but I think that might be best covered in the 6 month overview post which I am writing.

No Spend Days

This was yet another epic fail, and I tried really hard to make this a win this month! First of all, on day 1 of June I set out to cover as many spending things as I could. On a Friday which here means bad traffic and trouble finding a park where I want it. In that one day I managed nails, a haircut, a big pharmacy spend which was needed as we were running out of stuff we use, to take hot donuts to the other half at work as a surprise treat, and we did the grocery shop that night.

The next day we went to Shellharbour for a wander, and got a new sheet set, some bulk hair dye items which I needed and potatoes. Mostly we wandered and really enjoyed looking in the shops without *needing* to buy any of the things we saw. After 6 months we have separated wants from needs and we have begun to enjoy feeling the wants without any desire to actually spend money. In effect I exploded two spend days right at the start of the month without any intention to spend any more until the next grocery spending day.

Then chicken went on special, so I had to sacrifice a spend day to buy in bulk. On checking the letterbox around this time, I discovered that my rego had run out on the 31st of May as a surprise to myself.

This is actually happening to a lot of people now that they have taken the stickers away, because people do get some paperwork at least a month or even two months earlier and we put it aside to deal with when the time comes – and then we forget all about it, and there is no sticker on the car to remind you when it is due. There is now a reminder in my Google Calendar.

So I had to arrange the safety check, insurance, etc. This also cost me a spend day. And now we have used up our goal of 4 spend days and I still have grocery shopping to do, and I have this birthday money burning a hole in my pocket, and then The Other Half gets some unexpected days off.. so the train falls off the rails entirely.

11 days of spending out of 30. ;) This was very bad.

No Spend Goals For July

I think I am being unrealistic with these goals and that is why I am having trouble meeting them. This month I will need 3 days for grocery shopping, I’m going to budget two days for experience spending as we are going up to Sydney for an overnight, and I will budget two days for other things but hope not to use them. 7 days is the goal.

Grocery Spending

June grocery budget – $600

Coles – 26.70 (-10, was 36.70) + 86
Aldi – 212.06 (13.99 mens jeans 4 the other half work) +221.32
Bulk Veg – $20.70
Pasties – 32.00 (2.66 per pastie)
$598.78
$19.95/day

Just under budget. I did count the jeans as part of the spending because it was on the grocery docket but realistically I should take that off. The Other Half is not having a great time with jeans for work, several of his old reliable pairs have been thrown out after developing holes in places there should certainly not be holes.

Grocery Spending Goals For July

Grocery spend = $620
Bulk Items Budget = $100

June Thoughts

I’m actually going to post my overall thoughts on the past 6 months in another post. June was a tough month weather wise and I expect July to be even more so, it is time to hibernate and keep warm.

Another successful no-buy month. I was sure it would be a buy month as the weather turned very cold and I did not seem to have enough warm clothes but then I did a cupboard cleanout and found some extra things. I also found that my Ghanda round the house jumpers were nowhere near as “ratty” as I thought they were, and they really do not need replacing.

Keeping the tally – Our record thus far – January, February, April, May = nothing bought. March = something bought. One out of 5 = a buy month. Can I make it 1 out of 6? We will see.

No Spend Days

I have not been keeping a tally of meeting goals for no spend days and it occurs to me this is where my struggle is the hardest. I did not have a January goal. I have only met my goal in one month which was February. Though the April fail was due to an automatic payment and not something I could control – if we did not count that payment I did meet the goal that month.

For May my goal was four no spend days and I had 7 spend days. Epic fail, though one of those days I will not begrudge as it was an experience spend (May 10th for Gruen). The final spend there I got paid back for right away and it was an epic WIN actually – after 5 months of trying I finally managed to get my parents to buy new mobile phones.

We ran out of milk in our first fortnight this month, which caused an unexpected Aldi spend on the 17th. I have upped our milk buy for each fortnight. We are now up to 6 litres of milk each – mine is soy, the other half drinks A2. In the cooler months we like to have a cup of tea before bedtime and this is where the extra milk is going.

What the heck was I doing at Woolworths, I hear you ask. Didn’t I break up with them years ago? They had the Nivea oil I wanted for $7.50 instead of $16.45 I would pay at Coles, so I bought that and saved $8.95, and they stock another item I was sent in the next Black Box which I wanted to buy in other flavours. More about that when I review the box.

We bought some material to make up new door curtains from Spotlight, and have since blocked off the spare room door. We also got some weather strip at Bunnings (on The Other Half’s card so not seen here) to stop drafts from particular doors.

No Spend Goals For June

I would like to manage 5 spend days in June. I know I can do it! Now is the time to focus in on this goal because I have the grocery spending under control.

Grocery Spending

May grocery budget = $620

Coles – $88.70
Aldi – $468.71
Woolworths – $16.50
Bulk items $15.97
Total grocery spend – $589.88
Grocery cost of $19.02/day.

That is $30.12 under budget for the month. Potatoes were the bulk items.

Grocery Spending Goals For June

Grocery spend = $600
Bulk Items Budget = $120

I have set a bulk items budget for June. If Coles has the chicken mini roasts on special we plan to stock up. If they had them for $12 each, we might buy 8-10 of them and freeze them. This would save us $3 per roaster – if we bought 10 we would save $30 in total.

The truth I am beginning to see – bulk meat should probably have a separate budget because we do not eat all the meats in that same month. We have chicken still in the freezer from our bulk spends in January and February.

When we bulk buy chicken we prepare it in three different ways – breast steaks, breast pieces, and chicken kievs. If we are doing kievs, that time we might only prepare kievs and pieces. If we have enough kievs we might only prepare steaks and pieces. If we have enough kievs and steaks as we did the last purchase, we only made pieces.

At the end of our first 6 months I may be better able to estimate a good yearly bulk meat budget by looking at what we have spent so far and adding on an amount for the items we already had in the freezer. It might be better to track that separately from the grocery spend.

May Thoughts

Lurker Cat lurks in the background

We did some bulk buying this month – I bought 2kg of mushrooms on special which put 7 packets in the freezer, we bought two smoked hams from Aldi and sliced them up and froze 8 packets. The small hams you can get from there are incredibly tasty if you have a way of slicing them and they are great value at $12.99 a kilo. We have a meat slicer.

Nothing was required, so nothing was purchased. YAY. Our record thus far – January, February, April = nothing bought. March = something bought. One out of 4 is not bad, especially when you consider I didn’t go crazy and shop up a storm in the Nay month, I just bought those few things we needed at IKEA then went right back to no-buying.

No Spend Days April

My goal this month was 13 days in a row no spend goal – if not for the TVSN final payment falling on the wrong day I would have achieved 15 days in between spends.

The last entry includes a gift voucher I bought for Mum for Mothers Day, so she can try having her nails done.

No Spend Goals For May

Next month I will try something a bit different – a maximum of one spend day each week. Now that the TVSN payment is completed, I should have absolute control over this. There are 5 weeks in May and I would like to limit my spend days to 4 in total if possible.

I am concerned that I might not have enough warm clothes for winter and may need to make either May or June Nay months instead of Yay months on the no-buy challenge. I did a wardrobe re-organise and washed everything that hasn’t been worn during summer and spring, so we will see how that goes.

Grocery Spending April

Grocery Budget for April = $600

Coles month – $158.35
Aldi month – $425.54
Bulk Chicken $37.85
Total grocery spend – $621.74
Grocery cost of $20.72/day.

We went 21.74 over budget this month thanks to a dishwasher tablet special @37 cents a tablet, we bought 4 bags so hopefully we will not need those again for a while – and bulk chicken on special ($6.99/kg).

Coles tried to tempt us into spending $80 a week for 4 weeks to earn $50 in flybys points. We could not even spend $80 in the first week, even after buying two quite expensive chicken roasts @ $15 each, now on special for $12 of course – which we tried the first fortnight and decided we loved enough to put a couple in the freezer.. they are almost like the Lenards mini roasts we used to buy. The stuffing is delicious, I highly recommend. :)

There was simply not enough of the things we buy on special to add up to $80. We have stocked up on most of our regular buys in past months.

Three of the items I had planned to buy at Coles that week I found at Aldi for a lot less $$. The most notable item being chai spice latte powder. I had planned to buy the Arkadia version at Coles which was on special for $5.20 and found a seemingly identical item at Aldi for $4.49 – they have matcha and turmeric latte powder available there too.

I wanted this to add chai flavour to my lattes and protein shakes. The first ingredient is sugar, and they suggest you use four heaped teaspoons which would be a LOT of sugar. I find one normal teaspoon is usually enough and I replace one of my sugar teaspoons in afternoon coffee with this. What I love most is the star anise flavour in this powder, it is gorgeous and not always present in Chai tea. The powder is great sprinkled on top of milk foam, too.

Grocery Spending Goals For May

We last bought potatoes in bulk on the 15th of March and we are still eating those same potatoes. I’ll make it through this week but we will probably have to buy some on our next shop. I may suggest we head up to Shellharbour and do another bulk buy though there is a big airshow on at Albion Park this weekend which will make getting around a bit troublesome.

We may up the vegetable buying this month as it is time for making winter soups, and I need to get some Vili’s pasties from the bulk shop. We just did a bulk chicken buy of 5kg and that made us 5 x2 packs of Chicken Kiev for the freezer, as well as 4 lots of chicken pieces.

I cooked 68 sausage rolls in one bulk cook, 66 of which went into the freezer. Yes we only ate two! I made “Meat Thing” which is essentially my sausage roll mixture (beef mince, carrot, brussel sprouts, leek, egg, cheese, whizz in the food processor, make into sausage rolls) put into muffin tins without pastry for dinner.

May has 31 days so the grocery budget is $620.

April Thoughts

Happy moments, the Brussels are back at last! I knew they would be appearing soon so I had added them to this months shopping list.

In April we had an incident with the best before date on some thickened cream ending one week into our fortnight, when the thing I had planned to cook with it was in the second week. So now I will write the date of our next shop on each shopping list and we will aim to get milk, cream, and other short life products to expire on/after that date.