As those of you who have completed an adoption can understand, when it was time for us to travel, we hemorrhaged money. It was unbelieveable how fast money flowed out of our bank accounts and credit cards. Since we have been home, the exhaustion (early on) and bad habits have made us pretty lax in managing our finances.
In our house, Mr. A manages the bills and when he made a snarky comment about how often we eat out and how much money we waste in restaurants, I decided to look into the finances. I took a look at our accounts yesterday and I knew it was time.
Mr. A and I had to have a state of the finances fight address.
These conversations are never fun. The reason Mr. A originally started managing the bills is because I was harrassing him each month about every dime he spent when I used to pay them. Mr. A managing the finances is the second best thing we ever did for our relationship (#1 was hiring the cleaning people).
Now that I don’t manage them, I am much less stressed out. I am also much less likely to try and save money.
Last night we started our “discussion.” It stalled when we didn’t actually know how much we are spending on anything. Today I created a big spreadsheet and broke them down. Just a quick glance at what it showed for a sample month is this:
Mr. A Lunches – $97.00 (Note, this is only what he paid with the credit card. He uses cash a LOT, so who knows how much he is really spending on stupid lunches).
Amfam and Children Lunches – $16.73
Mr A clothing – $537.58 (he bought a suit and some other work clothes, but holy cow that is a lot of money)
Mr. A drycleaning – $40 (!)
Amfam Clothing – $10.37 (tshirt at H&M and one pair of flip flops)
Children’s clothing – $57.84
Target – $211.95
Groceries – $450
Restaurants (not lunches) – $190.32
Gas – $170 (This was shocking. I knew gas is expensive, but I never realized we were spending so damn much on gas).
M’s preschool – $340
Other random expenses – you don’t even want to know. Our medical bills alone this month were over $1,000 due to Mr. A’s snoring problem and L’s extensive medical testing. Stupid lawfirm and their sucky health insurance!
So while we eat out a fair amount as a family, Mr. A is eating out for lunches a RIDICULOUS amount*. Target also appears to be a huge money pit. We buy diapers and formula there (approx $20 a week) but what the hell did I buy with the rest of that money??
We have now decided that Mr. A can have a budget of about $10 per week for lunches. He is also required to use his credit card so we can track how much he is spending on them. I don’t think that M and I need more than $10 per week for one take out lunch and one coffee at starbucks for me.
I have volunteered to try to scale back the groceries by meal planning (I used to do better, but have been slacking since L came). I am also going to try to cut back our target bill to about $150 a month.
While I like to save money, I also want to preserve our ability to eat out as much as possible, since our entertainment costs are virtually nothing with a baby in the house. We are going to try to budget about $150 a month for dinners at restaurants and takeout.
I am hoping if we batten down the hatches, we can save a much bigger chunk of money each month. It is ridiculous for us to be spending almost everything Mr. A brings home with his rather cushy salary.
When I look at those numbers, it makes my head spin. The money seems to have a life of its own.
*To his credit, while I was chewing him out about his lunch budget, Mr. A managed to hold his tongue about my one recent excessive purchase. FWIW, I got it used for only $250 out of pocket plus some paypal money I was hording, so it could have been much much worse. Goes to show he is a smart man for not mentioning it.
Ugh. If you get it under control, do pass on the gory details. The best monetary situation we had was when we were saving for the adoption; I put Mr. OmegaMom on an allowance in his own account and cut off his debit card access to our joint account. But. Um. Right now, we, too, are hemorrhaging money. Good luck.
Costco & Target are both our money pits!
We went to Target last Saturday AND Sunday just to kill time while rainstorms were pounding the area.
Sigh.
Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease, tell how you got the deal on the bugaboo?
I fear the hemoraging (sp)
target is a HUGE moneypit for us. i swear i saved us at least $100 the first time i had my surgery simply because i couldn’t drive there. i should probably cut it off completely, but somethings, like diapers and paper products are just cheaper there!
You are making me nervous. We are about to travel. I am glad we dont live near Costco anymore. We would be flat broke.
Target – it’s a killer! And Costco, too. But, my grocery bill is lower since I started shopping there, so i keep telling myself i’m saving money.
We spend a RIDICULOUS amount on eating out, but DH spends NO money otherwise, aside from the occasional video game. We justify it by saying that’s our entertainment.
the bugaboo is worth whatever you paid for it! that thing is golden! is it orange? Mine is orange, but not for much longer… I’ve got a little project up my sleeves….
Do you want to borrow our super-fabulous easy menu planning book? You’ll have to wait til Brett doesn’t need it but it’s super-fabulous. Or you could get it at the library — Moms Guide to Meal Make-Overs
also? i’m so jealous of your stroller! i love it! what color did you get?
We started saving money by actually eating down everything in the fridge before we went shopping again. Cut out one weekly shop. Amazing what you can do with what you have in the fridge/freezer. Just buy the necessities like milk in between.
But then we pay over $7.00 a US gallon for petrol here in the UK so you have to do what you can to survive (I double your gas spending every month)
It’s nice to know we’re not alone. It seems like everyone else has money to burn. We are so tapped out after our trip.
Target is the bane of our budget as well. Do you really think you can eat lunch and coffee on 10$ a week? I guess maybe you could at fast food… It seems like lunch always costs me more.
Please write about your bugaboo! Today I’m taking 2 strollers to consign, trying to scrape together enough cash so get a better double stroller than my Combi Twin Savvy, which is a dissapointment.
I’ve definitely started saving more money by packing my lunch (most) days. When I eat out every day, I spend way more than Mr. A for my monthly lunch budget.
See, that’s why I stopped letting myself go to Target for grocery-type stuff! I wasn’t actually “saving” on the cheaper food prices because I was spending more on other non-essential things from the dollar stop part, and the kids’ clothes on clearance, and oh, look at the cute necklace, etc etc.
We are having a state-of-the-finances talk here too, mainly because we are not keeping good track of the misc/entertainment money we spend. Also, I have a sneaking suspicion that my husband is spending much more than I am!
I don’t get how A can spend 10/week for lunch working at a law firm. Is he, like, not supposed to eat with anyone else?
bj
Mr. A gets to eat firm financed meals once or twice a week. When he eats with other lawyers, it is usually because he has to, otherwise he usually works through lunch.
When we looked at the bills, his average lunch was $5.75, so that is almost two lunches a week he can eat out.
Why don’t you pack him lunches using extra food from dinner? Put food on plates, put extra food in tupperware, throw in apple, throw in chop sticks, throw in love note…done!
My ‘A’ hates my spreasheet. I can track where every penny went up to 10 years ago. oh…spreasheet, how i love thee.
Apparently (I am not a parent) even if you have a toddler you can still save money by buying washable diapers on ebay and selling them on when it is time for them to be toilet trained.
I hardly ever take pre-made sandwiches for lunch at work but I do buy lunch bits and leave them in the fridge/desk drawer at work (one-serving cans of tuna, crackers, cream cheese, apples, yoghurts, muesli bars) which makes me feel more like I’m not scrimping or dashing in the mornings, while still being cheaper than buying a sandwich every day. But I can either eat at my desk or in the coffee room.